TED refers to the difference between the three-month Treasury bill and the three-month LIBOR based in U.S. dollars, a measure of fear in the market.
The 3-month TED spread is rising awfully fast. A sign of impending recession.
US bank credit default swaps (CDS) are rising fast as inflation gets ugly.
The US Treasury 10Y-3M curve is bumping against the zero barrier.
I am still shaking my head at President Biden chastising gasoline stations for not lowering prices at the pump when refiners are near full capacity and the Biden Administration is doing nothing to increase the supply of US-source non-green energy.
Hey, I thought Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the US Transportation Secretary, was supposed to unclog the supply-chain crisis! Instead, we get heartaches on heartaches as diesel prices rise 118% under Biden AND now the bottle-necks may get a lot worse.
A US Supreme Court decision that could force California’s 70,000 truck owner-operators to stop driving is set to create another choke point in already-stressed West Coast logistics networks, a truckers’ organization said.
“Gasoline has been poured on the fire that is our ongoing supply-chain crisis,” the California Trucking Association said in a statement following the Supreme Court’s decision to deny a judicial review of a decision of a lower court, a process known as certiorari.
“In addition to the direct impact on California’s 70,000 owner-operators who have seven days to cease long-standing independent businesses, the impact of taking tens of thousands of truck drivers off the road will have devastating repercussions on an already fragile supply chain, increasing costs and worsening runaway inflation,” the CTA said.
The association asked the Supreme Court for a review of a case challenging California’s Assembly Bill 5, a law that sets out three tests to determine whether a worker is an employee entitled to job benefits or an independent contractor who isn’t. The trucking industry relies on contractors, and has fought to be exempt from state regulations for years because of federal law.
With few exceptions, the relationship between independent truckers and their carriers, brokers and shippers will be governed by the tests.
As if US consumers aren’t getting crushed by rising prices already. In response to the Covid outbreak, The Fed slammed its foot on the money accelerator along with Federal government stimulus. Throw in Biden’s anti-drilling executive orders, and we have a nightmare.
Consumer confidence is already crumbling under inflation and rising energy prices.
Crypto markets have slumped, adding to a decline that has wiped away some $2 trillion of market value and left market participants uneasy heading into the long Fourth of July weekend.
Bitcoin has fallen below $20,000 as the US Dollar strengthens.
At least Dogecoin is up today.
Enjoy your expensive 4th of July weekend! As long as you don’t eat much due to expensive food prices or drive anywhere due to high gasoline prices.
And government bonds on course for worst year since 1865 and President Abraham Lincoln (then President Andrew Johnson).
Which is bad news for Biden and Democrats after Q1’s bad GDP report of -1.6% “growth”, we now see the Atlanta Fed’s real-time GDP report for Q2 at -2.1%.
A “recession shock” begins for markets following the worst first-half for the S&P 500 in more than 50 years.
And investors are running to Treasuries for safety as US Treasury 10-year yields tank 14 basis points.
Biden’s approval rating has collapse with inflation and rising gasoline prices. Note that Biden’s approval rating dropped below 50 in mid-August 2021, long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. Gasoline prices had risen 49% since Biden’s inauguration as President, but before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The US economy is slowing as inflation ravages consumers. US Regular Gasoline prices, for example, are up 104% under President Biden which helps to slow the economy.
US personal consumption expenditures fell to +0.2% MoM in May as “inflation” or real personal consumption expenditures PRICES rose +6.3% YoY as The Fed’s balance sheet (aka, Master Blaster!) remains.
As I mentioned above, US regular gasoline prices are UP 103% under President Biden, diesel prices (the cost of shipping goods to markets like … food is up 119% under Biden while CRB foodstuffs is up 55% under China Joe.
Now we have mortgage rates in the US falling for the first time in four weeks. The average for a 30-year loan was 5.7%, down from 5.81% last week, Freddie Mac said in a statement Thursday.
This year’s Fourth of July celebration is going to cost 18% more than last year’s celebration.
Lastly, the Atlanta Fed GDPNow real time tracker for Q2 is showing … -1% GDP “growth.”
Russia defaulted on its foreign-currency sovereign debt for the first time in a century, the culmination of ever-tougher Western sanctions that shut down payment routes to overseas creditors.
For months, the country found paths around the penalties imposed after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. But at the end of the day on Sunday, the grace period on about $100 million of snared interest payments due May 27 expired, a deadline considered an event of default if missed.
It’s a grim marker in the country’s rapid transformation into an economic, financial and political outcast. The nation’s eurobonds have traded at distressed levels since the start of March, the central bank’s foreign reserves remain frozen, and the biggest banks are severed from the global financial system.
But given the damage already done to the economy and markets, the default is also mostly symbolic for now, and matters little to Russians dealing with double-digit inflation and the worst economic contraction in years.
War is hell and Ukraine is paying the price as well.
Meanwhile, European sovereign bond yields are up over 10 basis point this morning, but not UK and Sweden (non-ECB nations).
As a recession approaches, we are seeing the WIRP implied Fed o/n rate (green line) declining. And with The Fed chickening-out, we saw a surge in equities (NASDAQ composite index in blue).
Gasoline prices are falling too (orange line), but due to rising global economic slowdown. But notice that The Fed’s balance sheet (yellow line) is still growing despite repeated signals that Covid stimulus would be removed (I call this Quantitative Frightening).
As I mentioned above, The Fed has stopped trimming their balance sheet despite signals to the market of getting rid of the Covid stimulus. As Billy Preston sang, “Nothing From Nothing.”
The Atlanta Fed GDPNow Q2 forecast is for … 0% GDP growth despite the massive monetary stimulus and fiscal stimulus from Biden/Pelosi/Schumer.
And yes, the S&P 500 has officially entered a bear market under the leadership of Joe “The Bear” Biden.
So, Biden’s economic agenda (read, just spend more money and inflation declines?) is failing. Hence, The Fed is backing off a bit helping to drive up stock prices.
The talk of a gasoline tax “holiday” out of Washington DC is pure Kabuki theater. It is purely a sign of the times with Biden still trying to blame Putin for rising gasoline prices and inflation and ignoring his anti-fossil fuel policies that helped drive energy prices AND inflation through the roof.
Daily regular gasoline prices have dipped below $5.00 to $4.94 while diesel fuel, the lifeline of the shipping industry, rose slightly to $5.80. I guess the folks shipping food and other goods don’t get a holiday.
Note that the implied Fed target rate has fallen a bit as the probability of a recession increases.
And why are banks stashing so much money at The Fed in the form of reverse repos? Fear of recession, perhaps?
The Biden Administration is settling all kinds of records, and none are good.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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