By Tyler Durden, Tomorrow is VIX expiration, and, as SpotGamma notes, we head into that expiration with an elevated VIX structure. If you compare today’s VIX term structure to that of mid-November you can see current levels (black) remain well above Nov(blue). Nov is “pre Omnicron” and “pre Taper” so it makes sense that current prices […]

By Tyler Durden, When it comes to equity market fund flows, the one defining feature of 2021 was the unprecedented reversal of years of outflows (or at best stagnant inflows), culminating in a record flood of new money entering equity funds as retail investors awoke from their decade-long hibernation (with the help of trillions in stimmies). But […]

By Tyler Durden, A decisive “no” from Senator Joe Manchin on President Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) social engineering spendfest has sparked anger from The White House and economic outlook cuts from Wall Street. While BBB enactment had already looked like a close call, in light of Manchin’s comments Goldman has removed the assumption that BBB […]

By Tyler Durden, From Chetan Ahya, chief Asia economist at Morgan Stanley The China Upswing Over the years, China has experienced a number of mini-cycles. This year brought another iteration – the economy started the year on a strong footing but has entered a policy-induced downturn. The policy cycle has shifted from overtightening to easing, […]

By Tyler Durden, Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, In October of 2019, I began writing/warning of the ignored yet ominous signals coming out of the repo and Eurodollar markets and what the illiquidity (i.e., lack of availability) of U.S. Dollars portended for our markets in the coming years. Well, those years have since arrived. […]

By Tyler Durden, With a total GDP of $432.3 billion, Nigeria has become the biggest economy on the African continent over the last 30 years. While the five highest spots on this ranking have been more or less constant over the last three decades, Statista’s Florian Zandt notes that the rest of the top 8 are subject to bigger fluctuations […]

By Tyler Durden, Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, The Fed’s liquidity fire hose supported the massive government fiscal response to Covid. Through unprecedented asset purchases, the Fed provided enough liquidity to allow the U.S. Treasury to increase its debt burden grossly at historically low yields. Its actions bolstered asset markets and weighed on the […]

By Tyler Durden, By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management Thermodynamics “The interaction of inflation-focused monetary policies in the west and China’s mercantilist model created what I call The Refrigeration Mode,” said the CIO, sitting atop his prodigious pile. “The process has been ongoing for twenty years,” he continued. “The inflation-focused policy framework is […]

By Tyler Durden, According to The New York Fed’s latest survey, the public’s short-term expectations for inflation surged to 6% – a new record high. Interestingly, longer-run expectations for inflation eased a bit in November (for the first time since June). The New York Fed noted that: “the decline in medium-term expectations was driven by respondents without […]