This Is Not Your Grandpa's Inflation Problem

The Fed is starting to play catch-up with inflation signals from the bond market as evidenced by the Fed Funds Rate finally being pulled upward by the implications of the rising 3 month T-bill yield, among other more obvious signals like the long since rising 2yr Treasury yield and ongoing inflation headlines we read about every day.

After the June FOMC meeting, an additional .5% hike will be in the bag as CME Group traders are forecasting.

But as noted in this post about the May ISM (manufacturing) and Payrolls, supply chains are ever more involved in the narrative. Captain Obvious wants you to know that an economic drag is being caused by the past and present COVID-19 shutdowns, the war in Ukraine, and increasing global political tensions and saber rattling. Continue reading "This Is Not Your Grandpa's Inflation Problem"

As Inflation Signals Cool, Various Markets Get Relief

Whether a bounce or something more extended, a bear market rally was bound to get off the ground sooner or later. It was a matter of time, with stock market sentiment this over-bearish.

Here is how the US Stock Market segment led off last weekend in NFTRH 706:

bear market

We then covered the technically bearish state of the major indexes, which are clearly trending down on longer time frames. Sentiment is a tool. TA is a tool. Macro fundamentals are another tool. These tools and others should be used together to refine probabilities in the markets. Continue reading "As Inflation Signals Cool, Various Markets Get Relief"

ISM Hints At Forward Deceleration

As a former manufacturing guy, I am well aware of how monetary policy and the state of the US dollar affects US manufacturers. But I have not been that guy for so long now that I tend not to look at it as closely anymore. But the current time seems appropriate for a review of the manufacturing sector.

I actually used to look down upon the ‘services’ economy as something almost artificial, given that the US had been exporting its manufacturing base (and thus, much of its productivity) for decades and replacing normal economic cycles with monetary chicanery (like the Fed’s ability to regulate the economy through interest rate manipulation) in order to keep the consumerist racket going.

The latest round of monetary manipulation (the post-2020 cycle was driven by the Fed’s latest inflationary operation) is being addressed by the bond market, which is forcing the Fed to raise interest rates. The anticipation of which is a primary driver of the US dollar, which has been diverging inflation for a year. USD is on a heater now much like it was in 2014 when NFTRH caught that bottom in real time amid the post-2011 Goldilocks phase (in the US, while deflationary pressure persisted globally).

USD has retraced 62% of its decline into the 2007 low and is now at a long-term resistance area. Will it ‘sell the news’ of a hawkish Fed just as it bought the news (in 2021, which we also nailed in real time) of terrible inflation permeating the macro? That is for another article, as this one is about the ISM. For the purposes of this article, suffice it to say that a strong USD impairs US manufacturing exports. Continue reading "ISM Hints At Forward Deceleration"

The Continuum: Through The Limiters!

Inflation pushes the 30-year Treasury bond yield through long-term moving average trends!

Okay, let’s take a breath. I don’t like to use ‘!’ in titles or even in articles. In fact, when I see too many of them I immediately think that someone really REALLY wants me to see their point. That said, the signal shown below is pretty important.

It’s in-month with a monstrously over-bearish bond sentiment backdrop similar to when we installed a red arrow on the chart below at the height of the Q1 2011 frenzy (cue the Bond King: “short the long bond!”). Chart jockeys are probably delivering the bad news of the chart’s inverted H&S, a potential for which NFTRH began managing a year ago when the 30yr yield hit our initial target of 2.5% and then recoiled as expected after the public became very concerned about inflation.

larry

But we were planning for the possibility that the pullback could make a right side shoulder to a bullish pattern, and so it did. Now the question is whether the Continuum continues (resumes its long journey down) or does something it has not done for decades, which is to break the limiting moving average trends. It’s an important question, states Captain Obvious. Continue reading "The Continuum: Through The Limiters!"

Yield Curve Inverts Deeper Than August Of 2019

Like the larger media, this tiny little spec within the media reports the news to you. The 10yr-2yr yield curve has inverted (ref. Yield Curve inversion upcoming). Now, what does it mean?

Well, the first thing it usually means is not to panic (especially now that High Yield credit spreads are easing), but to tune out the media hype about it because it is not the inversion that tends to signal an economic bust but instead, the steepening that follows it. Among the important questions are how long will it remain inverted and how deep will the inversion go before the next steepener?

Here is today’s post-payrolls (+431k jobs) move as the bond market demands that the Fed get off its ample behind and get with the inflation making nasty headlines as it cost-pushes across the economy while the Fed and the long end of the curve lag well behind. But the Fed is probably lagging for a reason and one major reason could be that they see the curve, they know what comes next and it’s not pretty.

yield curve
cnbc.com

From the post linked at the top: Continue reading "Yield Curve Inverts Deeper Than August Of 2019"