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Red Sea attacks threaten cheaper goods

Maersk and other big shipping lines have paused transits through the Red Sea after Houthi missile and drone strikes on merchant ships in the Bab el-Mandeb strait.

Boxing Day: The year-end squeeze in money markets

While equity investors enjoyed eggnog and a holiday rally, money market desks were dealing with the annual squeeze that comes with year-end balance-sheet reporting.

Christmas: Is the Santa rally real?

Wall Street greets the last trading days of December with talk of the 'Santa Claus rally', the statistical habit of shares drifting higher into year-end.

Japan wants US Steel. Washington may say no

Nippon Steel has offered $14.9 billion for US Steel, or $55 a share, a forty per cent premium that the industrial logic can easily justify.

Japan is the last to keep rates below zero

The Fed pivots

Jerome Powell completed his change of tune at the December FOMC meeting and handed markets an early Christmas present.

Can the Fed really cut six times?

Fed funds futures are pricing in as many as six 25-basis-point cuts in 2024, which would take the policy rate from 5.4 per cent to below 4.0 per cent.

Companies rush to borrow before rates fall

Borrowing conditions for American companies have improved remarkably in a few weeks.

The great bond rally

The ten-year US Treasury yield fell by more than 80 basis points in November 2023 from its October peak, ending near 4.17 per cent and pulling borrowing costs down around the world.

Inflation is already at target, if you squint

The October core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index rose 3.5 per cent from a year earlier, still uncomfortably above the Fed's statutory goal.

A Fed hawk hints at cuts

Bond yields tumbled after Christopher Waller, one of the Federal Reserve's most influential and hawkish governors, said the central bank could start lowering rates if disinflation carried on for several more months.

Cyber Monday: Record spending on borrowed money

American shoppers spent $12.4 billion online on Cyber Monday, a record for a single day.

OpenAI's boardroom drama and Microsoft's $13bn exposure

Sam Altman was pushed out of OpenAI over a weekend and reinstated days later, an episode governance scholars will study for years as farce.

Black Friday: Retailers finally have the right amount of stock

Black Friday found American shops with tidy shelves, sensible stock levels and hardly any panic clearance sales.

Thanksgiving: Bond investors finally have something to be thankful for

The ten-year Treasury yield has fallen from its October peak of 5.02 per cent to about 4.40 per cent, handing bond funds large mark-to-market gains just in time for Thanksgiving.

Moody's warns on America's debt

Moody's Investors Service cut its outlook on America's Aaa credit rating from 'stable' to 'negative' on 10 November.

Are financial conditions tight or loose? Depends who you ask

Goldman Sachs' financial conditions index (FCI) says conditions have tightened sharply, thanks to high borrowing costs and a strong dollar.

Inflation hits 3.2%. The last mile begins

Headline inflation fell to 3.2 per cent in October, and core prices rose at their slowest annual pace in two years.

Diwali: India's festive boom runs on credit

Car dealers, electronics retailers and jewellers across India reported record sales over Diwali, helped along by the fastest growth of any major economy.

Singles' Day: China's shoppers have lost their nerve

Alibaba and JD.com again declined to publish gross merchandise volume figures for Singles' Day, the second year running, and offered only vague claims that transactions had grown.

WeWork's collapse: how leases became debt

WeWork has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, ending one of the most extravagant valuation bubbles venture capital has produced.

The Treasury borrows less than feared, and bonds soar

The Treasury set its quarterly refunding at $112 billion, a modest total that put most of the future growth in borrowing into shorter maturities.

The recession rule that's flashing amber

After the October jobs report the Sahm Rule indicator reached 0.33 percentage points, an amber warning.

The Treasury blinks

The US Treasury said on 31 October that it would borrow $776 billion in the coming quarter, well below the $852 billion Wall Street had feared, and that it would lean more heavily on short-dated bills.

Halloween: The zombie companies are rising

Ten-year yields are near 5 per cent and base rates stand at 5.5 per cent, and the companies kept alive by cheap money are running out of time.

Alphabet spends more, grows less, and pays for it

Alphabet's shares fell 9.5 per cent in a single session after its third-quarter results, wiping $160 billion off its market value.

The bond vigilantes are back

A $24 billion auction of 30-year US Treasuries drew weak demand and had to offer a hefty yield concession to clear.

The 10-year hits 5%. Why now?

The ten-year US Treasury yield touched 4.99 per cent on 19 October, within a whisker of 5.0 per cent for the first time since July 2007.

China's hidden local debt problem

China's central government has allowed provinces to issue more than RMB 1 trillion of special refinancing bonds to deal with the hidden debts of Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs), which are estimated at $9 trillion.

Banks' profit peak is here

JPMorgan Chase reported net interest income of nearly $23 billion for the third quarter, helped by high policy rates and its ability to pay depositors little.

After the Hamas attack, the rush to safety faded fast

Hamas's horrific attack on Israel on 7 October at first sent trading desks to the usual script for a geopolitical shock.

Strong jobs, falling bonds

Non-farm payrolls rose by 336,000 in September, nearly double the consensus forecast.

Washington's chaos now has a price

Congress passed a 45-day continuing resolution on 30 September and avoided a federal government shutdown with hours to spare.

Student loans are back, and shops will feel it

Forty-three million Americans must start repaying federal student loans again on 1 October, ending a three-year pandemic holiday.

Long bonds are selling off for a new reason

The ten-year Treasury yield has broken through 4.55 per cent, a sixteen-year high, and the reason has changed.

The Fed takes back half its rate cuts

The Federal Reserve left rates unchanged at its September meeting and still managed to send a hawkish message.

Is "higher for longer" already priced in?

US consumer prices rose 3.7 per cent year-on-year in August, pushed up by a sharp rally in wholesale energy prices.

The UAW strike's bill for Detroit

The United Auto Workers have gone on strike against Detroit's 'Big Three', General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, in a dispute that could reset labour costs across the industry.

How weak will Japan let the yen go?

The yen has slid toward 147 to the dollar, and currency traders are on watch for the Ministry of Finance to intervene.

Unemployment rose, for a good reason

The unemployment rate rose from 3.5 to 3.8 per cent in August, and the first commentaries warned of a turning cycle.

Anniversary: Our first year, graded

This column began a year ago on a simple premise, that the steepest central bank tightening in forty years would sooner or later collide with private balance sheets.

Saudi Arabia keeps oil above $90

Saudi Arabia will keep its unilateral cut of one million barrels a day in place until the end of the year, and Brent crude is back above $90 a barrel.

Labor Day: The job market is cooling the right way

For eighteen months economic orthodoxy held that bringing inflation down would require a painful jump in unemployment.

Arm's IPO: scarcity is the selling point

SoftBank bought Arm for $32 billion in 2016 and now wants a valuation approaching $64 billion while selling just nine per cent of the British chip designer to the public.

Bonds finally pay more than inflation

Ten-year US Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) now yield more than two per cent, for the first time since the financial crisis of 2009.

Economists can't agree on where rates should settle

At this year's Jackson Hole symposium, economists showed once again that they cannot agree on where the neutral rate of interest (r*) lies.

What is the "right" interest rate anyway?

The ten-year Treasury yield rose toward 4.35 per cent, its highest since 2007, and bond investors are having to ask an awkward question.

Country Garden and the end of China's property model

Country Garden missed $22.5 million in coupon payments on its international bonds, and the last pillar of China's private property model cracked.

China's prices are falling. Its currency could be next

Chinese consumer prices fell 0.3 per cent year-on-year in July, and the People's Bank of China now faces an awkward choice.

Why long bonds pay more — two very different answers

Ten-year Treasury yields have climbed toward 4.1 per cent, and fixed-income desks are arguing about why.