Last week saw the largest drop in aggregate Treasury short positions since Brexit. Ironicaly, while bond bears felt the squeeze, traders piled into Eurodollar shorts (increased rate-hike bets) sending the short-end's positioning to record highs.
While most traders over the past month have been obsessing over developments in Washington, the real action - most of it under the radar - has played out in China, where as discussed over the past few weeks, domestic liquidity has tightened notably, culminating with an unexpected bailout by the PBOC of various smaller banks who defaulted on their interbank loans as interest rates, particularly on Certificates of Deposit (CD) - which have become a preferred funding conduit for many Chinese banks - but not only, spiked.
Authored by Jeff Reeves via The Hill
I’m not a fan of the “greed is good” mentality of Wall Street investment firms. But the next financial crisis that rocks America won’t be driven by bankers behaving badly. It will in fact be driven by pension funds that cannot pay out what they promised to retirees. According to one pension advocacy organization, nearly 1 million working and retired Americans are covered by pension plans at the risk of collapse.
When one strips away the partisan rhetoric and posturing, the practical impact of Friday's GOP failure to repeal Obamacare has a specific monetary impact: approximately $1 trillion.
Authored by MN Gordon via Acting-Man.com,
Style Over Substance
“May you live in interesting times,” says the ancient Chinese curse. No doubt about it, we live in interesting times. Hardly a day goes by that we’re not aghast and astounded by a series of grotesque caricatures of the world as at devolves towards vulgarity. Just this week, for instance, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters tweeted, “Get ready for impeachment.”