Business

Overheard in Washington today...

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.

The Grim Reaper has taken his scythe to the Venezuelan bolivar. The death of the bolivar is depicted in the following chart. A bolivar is worthless, and with its collapse, Venezuela is witnessing the world’s worst inflation. 

Earlier in 2017, using the latest Fed data newspapers and financial media reported that US consumer credit card debt had risen above $1 trillion for the first time since the financial crisis.

While VIX futures and options speculators have pulled back (albeit very marginally) from their record short positions in the last week, ETF products betting that volatility will sink lower have never been more popular.

As VIX collapsed to an 8 handle and record low close last week, futures and options specs did pull back very modestly...

But, as Bloomberg reports, investors have continued to give the short-volatility trade their vote of confidence this year.

Authored by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist blog,

For a supposedly shrewd guy, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin sometimes astounds me. When he first took over the job, Mnuchin said the “concept of ultra-long bonds made sense for us to explore.”

With interest rates knocking at multi-generational lows, the idea of the government extending duration seemed prudent.