Maybe the bond market will never care about inflation. You have to go back to the early 1990s to find a time when changes in CPI had any correlation to changes in 10-year US Treasuries. As Ed Yardeni might say, the bond vigilantes don't discipline the market anymore. Why? Central bank financial repression, foreign exchange "management" by trade partners, and changing bank regulations since the financial crisis all played a role. Perhaps the bond market is dominated by price i

Does the Fed want to get on the horse? Not really. The Fed talks a good game. But if you compare their mistakes in the 1970s with the ones they are making today, you just shake your head. The 1960-1970s were a period of monetary RESTRAINT compared to the 2000-2021 time frame. For example, let's look at the difference between inflation and the Federal Funds rate. By changing the Federal Funds rate, the Federal Reserve attempts to speed up or slow down credit and economic growt

Realpolitik commentary on global trade economics. This article by two academic economists admits US global trade policy is broken. Great read. https://americanmind.org/salvo/see-no-evil/ So, here is the question: Why keep current policy if our trade partners routinely cheat? Robert Lloyd, CFA® Chief Investment Officer Lloyds Intrepid Wealth Management Lloyds Intrepid LLC is doing business as Lloyds Intrepid Wealth Management. Lloyds Intrepid LLC offers investment advisory ser

Now that's a rate hike! Yikes! Russia raised its overnight lending rate by 1.0% to 8.5%. Russian inflation running at 8.1%. https://lnkd.in/eW5AYEMq Ok, I'll be the first to admit: Russia is an emerging market, inflation has been a long-term problem there, and the Russian economy is does not have easy access to global cash flows like we do. Yet, it is an example of a central bank CHASING the inflation problem and the bond market higher. This is the unspoken fear here in the U

We had an interesting Fed meeting yesterday. Their press statement talked a lot about raising rates and reducing QE, but during the follow-on press conference Fed Chairman Powell talked about how the Fed is very sensitive to market reactions to new policy. Here is my interpretation of various reactions to the Fed announcement: Fed: We will only raise rates slowly to 2-2.5% to stop inflation. Bond Market: OK, we are good with that. Stock Market: Great! With inflation at 6.8%,

Narratives drive markets and the narrative on inflation has really heated up in the last few weeks. Look at some of these headlines from the WSJ, NYT, USA Today, FT and CNBC! What is the Fed telling these guys "off the record"? Fairly or not, the Federal Reserve and President Biden are being squarely blamed for this burst of inflation and the natives are getting restless. Is the Fed foaming the runway? We are expecting a strong Fed tightening cycle in 2022 in response to the