Bloomberg 7/17/22

An oil-price cap initiative to mitigate global inflation
while punishing Russia over what she calls “horrific
consequences” of the war in Ukraine has been high on the agenda
for US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, but a non-starter for
others like China and India. Indrawati said she will discuss the
proposal with Indonesia’s energy-related ministries.
Treasury said in a statement Yellen held a number of
bilateral meetings including sessions with Saudi Arabia’s
Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Australian Treasurer Jim
Chalmers, South African Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana and
Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. The statement
didn’t include details with how ministers responded to Yellen’s
appeal on the oil price cap.

Reuters 7/21/22

Lavrov said geographical realities had changed since Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held peace talks in Turkey in late March that failed to produce any breakthrough.
At that time, he said, the focus was on the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), self-styled breakaway entities in eastern Ukraine from which Russia has said it aims to drive out Ukrainian government forces.
"Now the geography is different, it's far from being just the DPR and LPR, it's also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories," he said, referring to areas well beyond the Donbas that Russia has wholly or partly seized.
"This process is continuing logically and persistently."

Bloomberg 7/10/22

US President Joe Biden and his Chinese
counterpart Xi Jinping are set to speak again in the coming
weeks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday.
Blinken spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi a day
earlier for more than five hours to help lay the groundwork for
a call between the leaders. While Biden said last month he would
speak with Xi “soon,” Blinken suggested it was getting closer.
“With regard to President Xi and President Biden, our
expectation is that they will have an opportunity to speak in
the weeks ahead,” Blinken told reporters during a stop in
Bangkok, Thailand.

Bloomberg 7/9/22

Shorter-dated Treasuries slumped Friday,
sending yields surging, after a stronger-than-expected US jobs
report bolstered the case for bigger interest-rate increases by
the Federal Reserve.
The two-year Treasury yield leaped as much as 13 basis
points to 3.14%, while swaps showed increased odds that
officials will choose to lift the Fed benchmark by 75 basis
points in July rather than 50. Expectations for where the Fed’s
benchmark might peak in the first quarter of 2023 jumped to more
than 3.6% as traders looked ahead to consumer price inflation
data next week.

Bloomberg 7/6/22

*FED OFFICIALS SAW 50 BPS OR 75 BPS HIKE AT JULY FOMC AS LIKELY
*FED MINUTES: `EVEN MORE RESTRICTIVE' POLICY POSSIBLE IN TIME
*FED OFFICIALS RECOGNIZED POLICY COULD SLOW GROWTH FOR A TIME
*MOST FED OFFICIALS SAW GROWTH RISKS SKEWED TO DOWNSIDE
*MANY ON FOMC SAW SIGNIFICANT RISK OF ENTRENCHED INFLATION
*FED: MANY CONCERNED LONG-RUN PRICE EXPECTATIONS COULD DRIFT UP
Treasury Yields Surge as Fed Minutes Underscore Inflation Fight
Yields at session highs after Fed minutes from June arrive
Minutes show inflation worries trump growth concerns

Treasuries extended their losses, driving yields to session highs, after the minutes of the most recent Federal Reserve meeting underscored policymakers’ commitment to tighten monetary policy aggressively to keep inflation from becoming entrenched in the economy.
Benchmark yields rose in mid-afternoon trading in New York, up more than 10 basis points across much of the curve, after the minutes from the June meeting showed officials saw a significant risk of entrenched inflation and that “even more restrictive” policy was possible.
The jumps capped another volatile day in the world’s largest bond market as traders try to navigate between the risks of persistent inflation and a potential recession set off by rising rates.
Yields on two-year Treasury notes -- among those that are more sensitive to central bank policy -- jumped 13 basis points to 2.95%, more than erasing a 6 basis point drop from earlier in the day. The swings mirrored the trading from Tuesday, when 2-year yields swung between a 13-basis-point advance and a 6-basis-point drop before ending the day little changed.
The 10-year higher by 12 basis points at 2.92%. The three-year note led the market selling, pushing the yield up 16 basis points to 2.98%.

New York Times 7/26/22

Pierre Wunsch, a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said the deposit rate should probably reach at least 1.5 percent.
The European Central Bank should keep raising interest rates to tackle inflation even if the eurozone slips into a recession, said Pierre Wunsch, a member of the bank’s Governing Council and the head of Belgium’s central bank.
Increasing the E.C.B.’s deposit rate to 1.5 percent is a “no brainer,” Mr. Wunsch said, as long as the economy didn’t fall into a “deep recession.” Last week, the bank raised interest rates for the first time in more than a decade, lifting the deposit rate from minus 0.5 percent to zero.

For fifty in sept its the same clip

The bank has been slower to raise rates and end its bond-buying program than other major central banks because much of the inflation in the eurozone has been generated by rising energy prices, exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine, and there was little the bank could do to control those price increases. But as inflation has spread to more goods and services and risks becoming more entrenched in the economy, the bank raised rates by twice as much as it indicated it would last week.
Mr. Wunsch said his preferred course of action given the economic outlook was to raise rates in half-percent increments and then maybe slow down when the deposit rate is closer to reaching 1.5 percent. Last week, the central bank withdrew some of its so-called forward guidance on interest rates, in which central bankers send strong signals to markets about what they plan to do in the future, and said decisions would instead be decided by a “meeting-by-meeting approach.”

Bloomberg 6/23/22

Traders Hedge Fed Cuts in 2023 as Recession Risk Hits Yields

A newfound uneasiness on where US interest rates will be a year from now has started to fester throughout the bond market, as traders seek hedges to cover against an abrupt dovish shift in the Federal Reserve’s policy plans.
With fears of a recession evolving, rates extended their plunge Thursday, taking the three-year Treasury rate down more than 20 basis points to less than 3%. Ominously, traders are also piling into hedges that protect against Fed policy rates not only topping out, but actually being cut back down toward zero as soon as next year.
The moves follow comments from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday which appeared to accept that steep rate increases could trigger a US recession.

Bloomberg 6/24/22

Inflation could remain high until the second half of next year, despite the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes and the after-effects of higher oil prices, according to a blog post published Friday by the New York Fed.
Inflation is accelerating both in the US and the euro area, and the expected path for policy rates has risen sharply in both economies, the researchers say.
Those factors, when combined with the potential for a slowdown in economic growth, add more uncertainty to the outlook for inflation, they say.
“Based on our analysis, we anticipate that inflation will likely remain elevated through the second quarter of 2023, despite payback for the inflationary impact of current negative oil supply shocks during the second half of 2022 and the disinflationary effects of tighter monetary policy,” researchers wrote in the blog post.
Tighter monetary policy alone is not enough to explain the deceleration projected for U.S. inflation over the next year.
“There is an important role for disinflationary payback in the latter part of 2022 for the current inflationary consequences of recent adverse oil supply shocks, driving the downside risk to the forecast,” the post says.
Inflation is projected to ease somewhat in both the US and the euro area, “but will remain elevated by May 2023.” There is a “higher likelihood of a larger-than-expected easing of inflation in the United States compared to the euro area.”

Bloomberg

The Bank of England hiked interest rates for
a fifth straight meeting and sent its strongest signal yet that
it is prepared to unleash larger moves if needed to tame
inflation.
The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee voted 6-3 to
increase rates by 25 basis points to 1.25%, with a minority of
officials maintaining their push for a move double that size.
Still, the BOE hinted that it may join a growing global
trend for larger hikes if inflation continues to soar, saying
“it would be particularly alert to indications of more
persistent inflationary pressures, and would if necessary act
forcefully in response.”
Crucially, that language was endorsed by all the BOE’s
voters, a departure from May when two declined to sign up to
guidance that more hikes were needed.

Bloomberg

“With regard to Italy -- I’m personally of
the standpoint that we should not do too much,” European Central
Bank Governing Council member Madis Muller told Estonian Chamber
of Commerce earlier on Wednesday.
* “We had a situation where the central bank bought up bonds on
a massive scale, including government bonds, resulting in very
low interest rates”
* “If we now end this activity, it is in and of itself expected
that interest rates rise and countries’ real fundamental
indicators start to play a bigger role. So in the case of the
Italy, which has a larger debt burden and a more complicated
outlook, it is logical that interest rates have to rise faster
than in Germany’s case”

Bloomberg

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by
75 basis points -- the biggest increase since 1994 -- and Chair
Jerome Powell said officials could move by that much again next
month or make a smaller half-point increase to get inflation
under control.
Slammed by critics for not anticipating the fastest price
gains in four decades and then for being too slow to respond to
them, Chairman Jerome Powell and colleagues on Wednesday
intensified their effort to cool prices by lifting the target
range for the federal funds rate to 1.5% to 1.75%.
“I do not expect moves of this size to be common,” he said
at a press conference in Washington after the decision,
referring to the larger increase. “Either a 50 basis point or a
75 basis-point increase seems most likely at our next meeting.
We will, however, make our decisions meeting by meeting.”

Bloomberg

The median prediction of officials was for a peak rate of
3.8% in 2023, and five forecast a federal funds rate above 4%;
the median projection in March was for 1.9% this year and 2.8%
next. Traders in futures markets were betting on a peak rate of
about 4% ahead of the release.

Bloomberg

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by
75 basis points -- the biggest increase since 1994 -- and Chair
Jerome Powell said officials could move by that much again next
month or make a smaller half-point increase to get inflation
under control.

Bloomberg 6/14/2023

Treasuries curve pivoted around a near unchanged 7-year sector on the day, in a flattening move that saw front- and belly yields cheaper and the long end richer on the day. Both curve and outright yields ended well off the day’s extreme levels that were reached in an aggressive bear flattening reaction to the Fed’s policy decision and update to summary of economic projections.
• The sharp post-Fed reaction was faded however over Fed Chair Powell’s press conference, following some downplaying of the central bank’s economic projections by saying no decision has been made for the next few meetings
• As swaps settled over the afternoon session, a policy peak of around 5.30% was priced for this year, still well below the Fed’s latest end of year projection of 5.625%

Bloomberg 6/21/22

The European Central Bank should exit sub-
zero interest rates in September, Governing Council Member Peter
Kazimir said.
“Negative rates must be history by September,” the Slovak
official told reporters in Bratislava on Tuesday, adding that
there’s a consensus that a half-point hike that month is “highly
probable.”

Bloomberg 6/21/22

The European Central Bank has “good reason”
to start raising interest rates next month, said Governing
Council member Olli Rehn.

“Key ECB interest rates will be raised in July, and a
further rise is expected in September,” Rehn said.
Speaking at a press conference in Helsinki, Rehn said that
next month’s hike will be 0.25 percentage point and that it’s
“very likely” the September step will be bigger than that, given
the outlook for inflation. Gradual increases will then continue,
he said.

Bloomberg 7/6/22

The following is a reformatted version of a
statement published Tuesday on the Reserve Bank of Australia’s
website, after Governor Philip Lowe and his board raised the
overnight cash-rate target to 1.35%.
At its meeting today, the Board decided to increase the
cash rate target by 50 basis points to 1.35%. It also increased
the interest rate on Exchange Settlement balances by 50 basis
points to 1.25%.

Bloomberg 6/21/22

Australia’s central bank chief Philip Lowe
said interest rates are likely to rise by 50 basis points at
most in July, prompting money markets to scrap bets he would
track the Federal Reserve with a 75 basis-point move.

Lowe was asked directly after his speech whether 75 basis
points was on the table and responded that, like this month, the
board would only be considering a rise of 25-to-50 basis points
in July.

Bloomberg 6/2/22

Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard said market pricing for 50 bps hikes in June and July seems like a “reasonable” path, and it’s “very hard to see the case for a pause” in Sept.
Brainard speaks in interview on CNBC
If there’s no deceleration in inflation prints, it might well be appropriate to have another meeting where Fed raises rates 50 bps; could also raise by smaller amount
No. 1 challenge is to get inflation down, and Fed will do what’s necessary; she’s looking for a “consistent string of data” showing cooler inflation
Very hard to predict with precision when inflation will come down, but Fed’s tools are starting to have desired effect
“We do expect to see some cooling of a very, very strong economy over time”

MarketWatch 5/31/22
Treasury yields climb steeply after Fed’s Waller says half-point rate hikes will continue until inflation subsides
U.S. government bond yields rose steeply Tuesday morning after a three-day holiday weekend, lifted by a hawkish speech from a Federal Reserve official on the need to raise interest rates beyond a neutral setting.
U.S. financial markets were closed Monday because of the Memorial Day holiday.
Tuesday’s rise in U.S. yields came as Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller said in a speech in Frankfurt, Germany, on Monday that he wants to keep lifting interest rates by half percentage point increments until he sees signs that inflation is coming down.
“In particular, I am not taking 50 basis-point hikes off the table until I see inflation coming down closer to our 2% target. And, by the end of this year, I support having the policy rate at a level above neutral so that it is reducing demand for products and labor, bringing it more in line with supply and thus helping rein in inflation,” Waller said.
By contrast, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said half-point rate hikes are likely at each of the Federal Open Market Committee’s meetings in June and July, but that policy makers are prepared to do either less or more depending on how the economy evolves.

Bloomberg 5/31/22

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller
said he wants to keep raising interest rates in half-percentage
point steps until inflation is easing back toward the US central
bank’s goal.

“I support tightening policy by another 50 basis points for
several meetings,” he said in remarks prepared for delivery on
Monday in Frankfurt. “In particular, I am not taking 50 basis-
point hikes off the table until I see inflation coming down
closer to our 2% target,” he told an event hosted by the
Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability.

Bloomberg 5/25/22

Here are the key takeaways from the Federal Open Market Committee’s May 3-4 meeting minutes released Wednesday.
There is a strong consensus for raising interest rates by half a point at the next FOMC meetings in June and July, given that inflation is near a four-decade high. That would bring the target rate to 1.75%-2% or the lower edge of the range of a “neutral” rate -- neither restrictive nor stimulative. That will set up an important Fed symposium at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in late August, where Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech will be especially vital, and a pivotal committee meeting in September. There was no discussion of a 75 basis-point move.
While the plan is to reach “neutral” expeditiously, what comes next is far less certain. The committee expects to be “well positioned” later this year to reflect on the effects of policy tightening and assess what further moves are necessary. FOMC participants felt a restrictive rate might be necessary, depending on the evolving outlook, and they are focused on risks as well.

Bloomberg 5/21/22

European Central Bank President Christine
Lagarde said the first increase in interest rates in more than a
decade may come in July but downplayed the idea of a half-point
move amid concerns about economic expansion.
In a sign of the inflation concerns, the Netherlands’ Klaas
Knot this week became the first Governing Council member to
float the idea of a 50 basis-point move at the ECB’s July
meeting, though only if data worsen.
Asked about a possible increase of that size, Lagarde said
“it’s not something that I can tell you at this point in time,”
stressing that she shares “the same direction of travel” with
Knot but also that economic growth mustn’t be risked.
“We need to make sure that this is going gradually enough
so that we don’t put the break on this car that is moving,” she
said. “We have to lift the accelerator for sure to slow
inflation but we cannot be breaking any speed.”

Bloomberg 5/18/22

There’s broad agreement among members of the
European Central Bank Governing Council that policy rates should
exit sub-zero terrain “relatively quickly,” according to Bank of
Finland Governor Olli Rehn.
That’s to prevent inflation expectations from becoming de-
anchored, Rehn said in a speech in Helsinki on Wednesday.
“It is my view that it seems necessary that in our policy
rates we move relatively quickly out of negative territory and
continue our gradual process of monetary policy normalization,”
he said. “I am not alone, as this is also the indication given
by many of my colleagues in the ECB Board and Governing
Council.”

WSJ 5/17/22

Mr. Evans told reporters after his remarks that in terms of the pace of monetary policy tightening, he sees big moves that moderate into smaller ones as the year moves toward its close. “I’m expecting that before December, we will have completed in any 50s and have put in place at least a few 25s,” he said in reference to the basis-point size of those prospective actions.

Bloomberg 5/17/22

A top Federal Reserve official downplayed deteriorating liquidity conditions in financial markets, telling an audience Monday it was to be expected given rising volatility as investors grapple with uncertainty over global events and shifting U.S. monetary policy.
“In the global environment there’s a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of events happening. We’re also seeing our actions moving monetary policy, I think, in a very strong direction, to more normal rates,” New York Fed President John Williams told a Mortgage Bankers Association conference in New York. “Some of that volatility -- in say, the Treasury market -- is really the markets digesting that information.”
Signs of deteriorating liquidity in U.S. Treasuries, such as measures of market depth and bid-ask spreads, are “more or less in line with the increase in volatility in markets,” he said. “It’s just a reflection more of: A lot’s happening with market rates moving around, and therefore you’re seeing some of these measures of liquidity deteriorate somewhat, and pretty much consistent with past experience there.”
Williams’s comments echoed a semi-annual report on financial stability issues published on May 9, and were delivered amid a broad market downturn that has seen the S&P 500 index of U.S. stocks lose nearly 17% of its value since reaching a record high in the first week of the year.
The central bank is attempting to tighten financial conditions in a bid to slow the economy and bring down inflation from multi-decade highs. Policy makers authorized a half-point increase in the benchmark federal funds rate at the conclusion of their most recent meeting on May 4, marking the largest single hike since 2000.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters after the meeting that the central bank was on track to enact additional half-point increases at the next two meetings in June and July.
Williams said Monday such a plan “makes sense” as the Fed moves rates “expeditiously over this year back to more normal levels.”
“We do need to move -- again, the word is ‘expeditiously’ -- to more normal rates this year, and we’re on our way to do that. But we also need to watch, and we need to monitor what’s happening in the economy,” Williams said.
“We’ve already seen a tightening in U.S. financial conditions that is far greater than what we saw in all of 1994,” he added, referring to an episode where, under then-Chair Alan Greenspan, the Fed embarked on a surprise tightening campaign that led bond investors to sustain heavy losses.

5/18/22

“This is a strong economy and we think it’s well positioned
to withstand less accommodative monetary policy, tighter
monetary policy,” Powell said. “There could be some pain
involved to restoring price stability, but we think we can
maintain a strong labor market.”
Fed officials say they can reduce demand for jobs without
raising unemployment by much from its current level of 3.6%.
Powell, confirmed by the Senate last week to a second four-
year term at the helm, said the labor market would still be
strong even if the jobless rate was “a few ticks” higher than
that.

Bloomberg 5/17/22

E-commerce marketplace Wayfair Inc. said it’s freezing corporate hiring for 90 days, the latest pandemic winner to pause its plans for growth as businesses fret over a slowing economy.
Wayfair is in a “strong position,” a spokesperson said in response to a question about hiring. But the company sees “a great deal of uncertainty in the overall economy.” The Boston-based company has almost 17,000 full-time employees, according to regulatory filings.
Online retailers boomed during the pandemic with Wayfair and rival Amazon.com Inc. having no shortage of consumers ordering goods at home thanks to pandemic restrictions and unprecedented amounts of fiscal stimulus. That led Wayfair to report a 55% jump in revenue in 2020 to $14.1 billion in 2020 as demand boomed, but sales declined 3% to $13.7 billion in 2021.

In the current quarter Wayfair said so far revenue is down in the mid-to-high teens compared with last year. Costs associated with labor, energy and transportation will also weigh on margins, the company said.

Bloomberg News 5/16/22

China’s Economic Activity Collapses Under Xi’s Covid Zero Policy

China’s economy is paying the price for the
nation’s Covid Zero policy, with industrial output and consumer
spending sliding to the worst levels since the pandemic began
and analysts warning of no quick recovery.
Industrial output unexpectedly fell 2.9% in April from a
year ago, while retail sales contracted 11.1% in the period,
weaker than a projected 6.6% drop. The unemployment rate climbed
to 6.1% and the youth jobless rate hit a record.

Bloomberg

In its first forecasts since Russia invaded Ukraine and
confirming an earlier Bloomberg report, the EU also cut its
base-case outlook -- predicting gross domestic product will
advance 2.7% this year and 2.3% in 2023, down from February’s 4%
and 2.7%.
The revisions suggest Germany, the continent’s biggest
economy, won’t reach pre-crisis output until the final quarter
of 2022, while Spain must wait until the third quarter of 2023,
the commission said.