Highlights Chart 1Something's Got To Give Last Friday's disappointing employment report reinforced the bond market's recent strength. The 10-year Treasury yield reached a new 2017 low of 2.15%, the 10-year TIPS breakeven…
Highlights Chart 1Rate Hikes Lagging Wage Growth Last Friday's GDP report showed that the U.S. economy grew a meagre 0.7% (annualized) in the first quarter of 2017, well below levels necessary to sustain an uptrend in…
Highlights Chart 1Is Inflation Heating Up? In past reports we have argued that as long as inflation (and inflation expectations) are below the Fed's target, then the "reflation trade" will remain in vogue. In other…
Highlights Chart 1Keep A Close Eye On Financial Conditions The market's rate hike expectations moved sharply higher during the past two weeks as a string of Fed speeches, including one by Chair Yellen, all but confirmed a March…
Highlights Chart 1Strong Growth & An Easy Fed More than a month has passed since the Fed's latest rate hike and, at least so far, the economy is displaying no ill effects. While the economic data continue to surprise…
Highlights Chart 1Upside Risks & Uncertainty The evidence of economic acceleration continues to pile up and we maintain our view that bond yields will be higher than current forwards by the end of 2017. In the near-term,…
Highlights Chart 1More Upside From Inflation We moved to below benchmark duration on July 19, when the 10-year Treasury yield was 1.56%. As of last Friday's close, the 10-year Treasury yield was 2.4% and above the fair value…
Highlights Chart 1Targeting 2% The Fed did its best to avoid roiling markets so close to today's election, but still managed to hint at a December rate hike. The post-meeting statement was tweaked so that now only "some…
There are two key risks that could derail a bear-flattening of the yield curve. The first is a Trump election victory, the second is a flaring of stress in the non-U.S. banking sector.
With recent comments strongly hinting that the Fed is on track for a rate hike in December, the dy-namics of the Fed Policy Loop make spread product appear extremely vulnerable.