Monetary Insanity
The Market Ticker - Commentary on The Capital Markets
Login or register to improve your experience
Main Navigation
Sarah's Resources You Should See
Full-Text Search & Archives
Leverage, the book
Legal Disclaimer

The content on this site is provided without any warranty, express or implied. All opinions expressed on this site are those of the author and may contain errors or omissions. For investment, legal or other professional advice specific to your situation contact a licensed professional in your jurisdiction.

NO MATERIAL HERE CONSTITUTES "INVESTMENT ADVICE" NOR IS IT A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY OR SELL ANY FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO STOCKS, OPTIONS, BONDS OR FUTURES.

Actions you undertake as a consequence of any analysis, opinion or advertisement on this site are your sole responsibility; author(s) may have positions in securities or firms mentioned and have no duty to disclose same.

The Market Ticker content may be sent unmodified to lawmakers via print or electronic means or excerpted online for non-commercial purposes provided full attribution is given and the original article source is linked to. Please contact Karl Denninger for reprint permission in other media, to republish full articles, or for any commercial use (which includes any site where advertising is displayed.)

Submissions or tips on matters of economic or political interest may be sent "over the transom" to The Editor at any time. To be considered for publication your submission must be complete (NOT a "pitch"; those get you blocked as a spammer), include full and correct contact information and be related to an economic or political matter of the day. All submissions become the property of The Market Ticker.

Considering sending spam? Read this first.

2024-09-19 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Federal Reserve , 313 references Ignore this thread
Monetary Insanity
[Comments enabled]

50 bips it is from The Fed.

There's a problem: Immediately -- literally, within seconds -- the IRX, or 13 week bill continuous contract rate, moved to 4.6% maintaining a spread below Fed Funds.

In other words the market moved first and now the market is leading Powell around by the nose demanding even more.

I don't care what Powell says, I care what the market does.  Further, the long end came up slightly -- but by no means anywhere near as much as the IRX went the other way.  The IRX/TNX spread remains deeply negative -- where it should be positive because time always has value, and an inverted relationship is a declaration that time has negative value.

The prime tool Powell has is his mouth, followed closely by the behind-the-scenes transactions run out of the NY Fed desk at their direction.  That's pretty-much it, and the latter can make huge losses if the market calls "BS!" on the former.  The Fed, unlike a private firm, can't go "bankrupt" but losses are directly negative to Treasury because normally The Fed remits all of its income, less its operating expenses, to Treasury.  When it makes losses it remits nothing until the loss it has on the books is recovered, and the greater the loss the longer that will be.  That is, said losses are in fact additive to the deficit albeit not on a direct and immediate basis.

My first-blush read: Instability between The Fed and markets, in a marketplace where large, established firms are running at four to five times sane Price:Sales ratios, is exactly the sort of situation that sets up extraordinarily large draw-downs (aka a "crash") when (not if) a triggering event occurs.  Like, perhaps, realization that a negative ROI in a business doesn't become a positive one with a rate cut, and if the problem is price (and it is) cutting borrowing costs not only don't resolve the problem doing that makes it worse.

Go to responses (registration required to post)
 



 
No Comments Yet.....
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Page 1 of 27  First123456789Last
Login Register Top Blog Top Blog Topics FAQ
Page 1 of 27  First123456789Last