Author Archives: Sean Corrigan

Asset Class, Bonds, Central banks, Commodities, Corporatism, Energy, Equities, Fixed Income, Gold, Greens, Inflation, Leverage, Macro, Money, QE

The Home Stretch

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

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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Bank of England, Bonds, Central banks, Commodities, ECB, Economics, Equities, Federal Reserve, Fixed Income, Inflation, Macro, Money, money supply, Profits, QE, Revenues

The Witching Hour for Inflation

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

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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Austrian Theory, Banking, Bonds, Budget, Capitalism, Central banks, Commodities, Corporatism, CPI, Credit, Cycles, Economics, Energy, Entrepreneur, Europe, Federal Reserve, Fixed Income, Government, Inflation, Macro, MMT, Money, money supply, Politics, Production, QE

Pandora’s Box

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

Most people associate ‘inflation’ with rising prices, but the disease goes much deeper than that. Inflation is a phenomenon wherein money becomes so abundant it disrupts relative price formation and hence interferes with the vital transmission of information about the state of the countless interactions of supply and demand, plenty and scarcity, which take place on the market. As the fever rises, mistakes accumulate, conflicts intensify, timings clash, finances become stretched, and coherence is lost. A rising price is one thing. Prices -plural- rising at varying speeds and in an ever less predictable manner is a much more dangerous pathology.

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Agriculture, Central banks, China, Commodities, CPI, ECB, Economics, Equities, Europe, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Forex, Government, Inflation, Japan, Macro, Margin, Metals, money supply, Primary Dealers, Production, QE, repo, Revenues, Tech, US Treasury, USA

Paradigm Shift

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

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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Bonds, Commodities, Equities, Federal Reserve, Fixed Income, High Yield, Leverage, Money, money supply, Tech, US Treasury, Volatility, Yield Curve

Testing the Market’s Mojo

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

The sell-off in Treasuries is causing a few conniptions and simultaneously provoking a spate of bearish comments. The higher the markets go without some sort of correction or consolidation, the riskier they get, but we don’t think bonds, per se, are yet enough to trigger a reversal

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Bank of England, BOE, BOJ, Bonds, Central banks, Commodities, ECB, Energy, Equities, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Forex, Government, Inflation, Intervention, Macro, MMT, Money, money supply, QE

The Beggar’s Opera

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

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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Bank of England, Bitcoin, BOJ, Budget, Central banks, Commodities, CPI, Crypto, ECB, Emerging Markets, Equities, Europe, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Government, Inflation, Japan, Keynesianism, Macro, Metals, money supply, Politics, Production, Revenues, Tech, UK, UK Treasury, US Treasury, USA

Burning Holes in Idlers’ Pockets

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

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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Bonds, Central banks, China, Emerging Markets, Fixed Income, Forex, Macro, Metals, Money, money supply, Profits, Trade, Yield Curve

The Ship of Fools

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

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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Bank of England, BOE, Bonds, Central banks, Corporatism, Credit, ECB, Europe, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Fixed Income, Inflation, Macro, MMT, Money, Planning, Politics, QE, UK Treasury, US Treasury, USA

Tighten Your Belts: The Rationale

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

Markets seem happy for now to focus on the carrot of a vaccine while ignoring the stick of the further severe restrictions to life and liberty being implemented while we await its delivery. Whether or not it offers a release from bondage, the state’s rediscovered taste for authoritarianism will, however, take some good time to dispel, while its corollary – the move toward taking an ever greater role amid the wreckage of the private economy – is being pursued with relish. Whatever the sloganizing, this is very unlikely to Build anything Back Better – only dearer and scarcer.

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Agriculture, Bonds, Commodities, Credit, Energy, Equities, Europe, Fixed Income, Forex, futures, Gold, High Yield, Japan, Metals, Revenues, Tech, UK, USA

Tighten Your Belts: Market Observations

Posted on by Sean Corrigan

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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