Dear Friends:
This website exists because of you. You called me out of retirement. We made a deal that you would support the website. And you have. Voluntary monthly subscriptions now exceed in number the responses to my quarterly call for donations.
Part of this is due to growth in the signups for monthly donations. But part is due to decline in the response to my quarterly requests.
Doubleline Capital founder Jeff Gundlach warned that the flattening yield curve could become a concern for US economic growth when two and three-year notes yield about the same, and the price per barrel of WTI crude oil plunges into the $30s, he said during a phone call with a Reuters reporter.
The last time the spread between two- and three-year yields held below 10 basis points was around the time former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced the beginning of Operation Twist and then QE3 in late 2012.
Since we first highlighted the cash-crunch in Qatar over a week ago, the situation has got notably worse (as liquidity costs rise further, signalling Qatar's financial system is running out of dollars).
The good news for Qatar - the world's wealthiest nation on a GDP/capita basis - is that it has enough financial firepower to withstand a prolonged financial siege, and defend its currency and economy, Finance Minister Ali Shareef Al Emadi told CNBC in an interview broadcast last Monday.
These are actual quotes from banks
And even e*Trade is starting to get it...
In his morning note, Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid discusses the latest bear market in oil, and highlights some interesting details for oil price fans: oil is now back to levels last seen on September 16th last year and even though we’ve rallied hard since February 2016, Oil has only been lower than this for 6% (188 days) of the time since the start of 2005. That is mostly made up of 44 days in 2008/09 and 112 days in late 2015/ early 2016. So these are pretty stressed levels relative to the past decade or so.