Tag Archives: bonds

The Home Stretch

The final quarter is often one of instant reinforcement of both winners and losers. How will it go this time, once the Fed has thrown the knucklebones? Will Evergrande’s partly politically-inspired demise be smoothly handled – if only in a manner that satisfies Xi’s insatiable lust for power? Will the Vaccine Wars further undermine social harmony and hinder economic progress? How will the burgeoning energy crisis – bastard child of misguided climate polcies – play out as winter approaches? All will be revealed in due course.

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The Witching Hour for Inflation

Fifty years ago, President Richard Nixon, signed Executive Order 11615 and with it sundered the last remaining links between the US dollar and gold. Half a century on and many of the lessons of that sorry episode have been sadly forgotten while central banks now hold themselves accountable to no standard save that of their own swelling hubris. Can we really avoid the evils of inflation in such a world?

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Paradigm Shift

An uneasy calm has descended on the markets since the end of the first quarter put a stop to the heavy liquidation in bonds and some gained the sense that commodities were perhaps a little overcooked. The rebalancing and retracements those two entailed could yet run further, but we very much doubt that we’ve seen the last of the inflationary wave.

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The Beggar’s Opera

Though a lot of hot money was poured into the trade in the last quarter of 2020, there is still much reluctance on the part of economists – always prone to a spot of Under-consumption fallacy – to wholly embrace the idea that prices are beginning to rise and that the path ahead is likely to be an inflationary one. That path will inevitably not be smooth, nor its ascent uninterrupted, but it is hard to see where we slow the climb or take a different turning – or even that sufficient will exists to choose that alternative were it ever to come up on our satnav.

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Burning Holes in Idlers’ Pockets

Inflation, Milton Friedman famously said, is a monetary phenomenon. But it is also one given the readiest of outlets through recourse to what we call ‘fiscal’ policy – i.e., by spendthrift governments borrowing money created at their call and forced into the system by means of warfare, welfare, contracting, cronyism, bureaucratic expansion and plain old boondogglery. Arguably, this is where we find ourselves today, in a world where supply is no longer likely to meet demand as abundantly and as effortlessly as has been the case these past twenty years.

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The Ship of Fools

China’s ports are humming, its exports booming to the point that it is causing evident stress in maritime trade. Freight rates are soaring and dockside space is becoming limited, threatening production and raising costs across the board. Despite the macro strength – and the vote of confidence this has received from forex and equity markets – the last few weeks have been testing ones in credit. Once more the nation’s vast superstructure of debt has creaked and groaned – but just about held firm, once more. One of these fine days…

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Tighten Your Belts: Market Observations

We ended the summer by saying that – barring another disastrous, COVID19-inspired, mass governmental embargo on everyday economic activity – the miners, makers, movers, and merchants of the things we need to run our lives when we are not scrolling through Instagram or pretending to pay attention to a yet another pointless Zoom conference would begin to make up ground lost in lockdown to the providers of such diversions. State interference would henceforth take other, more chronic forms of hindrance: tending deliberately to boost demand while making its satisfaction progressively more difficult. So far – broadly speaking – so good.

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A Shot in the Dark

The ink has not even dried on the US ballot papers (!) but the Market already thinks it knows what this will all mean. And then there’s Pfizer’s vaccine announcement – perhaps similarly preliminary in nature – but, hey, the Herd will always take every silver lining it can find. Some of the themes we touched upon at the end of the Summer are still in play: Japan has been attracting money, non-oil commodities are rallying, gold has lost some lustre, bond yields are creeping higher, and Value may just be topping out at last v Growth.

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Fire and Water

This essay attempts a review of the economics – and the prevailing economic thinking – which have brought us to our present pass of high-leverage and heavy debt-dependence. It helps set the backdrop for an in-depth look at markets which will follow shortly…

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The Rhyme of History

While stocks have generally tended to offer better returns than Treasuries, it has not all been plain sailing for equity investors. Intriguingly, the last 50 years’ ups and downs share more than a few similarities with the first half of the last century. Could that uncanny resemblance continue to hold henceforward?

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