Finance chiefs from the G7 economies are meeting in Japan this weekend ahead of next week’s G7 summit. At the top of the agenda: sluggish global growth. As anyone who follows global macro is acutely aware, Japan is in many ways the poster child for subdued economic activity. Last year, the country r
Well, here we go again. Both crude and stocks got off to a rocky start on Thursday as the Dow plunged triple digits and oil fell more than 2.5%. The culprit: why, the Fed of course. This week has reinforced the market themes that have played out for most of this year. On Monday we
Surprise, surprise. Minutes from the Fed’s April meeting are out and the message is overwhelmingly hawkish. June is “live” after all. Equity markets immediately dipped into the red although after yesterday’s commentary from Williams and Lockhart, investors probably should have expected this. In hind
On Tuesday, equity markets stumbled after a firm CPI print and upbeat commentary from the San Francisco Fed’s John Williams and Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart seemed to suggest that a June rate hike might still be a possibility. The triple digit decline on the Dow represented a return to a pe
It was just yesterday when Richmond Fed chief and consummate hawk Jeffrey Lacker told The Washington Post that in his view, the FOMC needs to “catch up” after falling behind the curve (no bond market pun intended) on policy normalization. Whatever impetus there was for a March hike promptly disappea
Going into this week, some traders assumed things couldn’t get any worse for LendingClub. Shares in the beleaguered marketplace lender tumbled last week following an internal investigation into falsified loans sold to Jefferies and after it was revealed that CEO Renaud Laplanche failed to tell the b
"I think markets may be extrapolating from our recent behavior and thinking all we do is delay.” That’s from Jeffrey Lacker and it’s entirely accurate. Lacker has been a vocal critic of the FOMC’s easy money policies for years and on Monday, The Washington Post published an exclusive interview with
If everyone is being honest, forecasting commodities prices further out than say six or so months is well nigh impossible. There are just too many inputs. That goes double for oil, the most financialized of all commodities. As I wrote last week, the market is now trading almost exclusively off crude
Last September, Janet Yellen adopted the now famous “dovish relent.” A little over three weeks earlier, China “shocked” the market with a “surprise” devaluation of the yuan. To be sure, no one should have been taken off guard. China is an export driven economy with a currency tethered to the dollar.
It was just three days ago when I asked the following question: “does the disaster at LendingClub foretell the demise of marketplace lending?” While it’s ultimately too early to know the answer, it’s worth noting what’s happened since then. If you read that post, came away bearish, and acted on your
