“The Fed’s an inflation creator, not an inflation fighter.” So said Paul Tudor Jones last week in an interview on CNBC. It’s doubtful that charge has been leveled at the Fed in at least half a century. William McChesney Martin ran the Fed for almost 19 years (1951-70) during a period that set the stage […]
Bond yields have drifted up 0.25% over the past month. Real yields on TIPs have barely budged from around –1%, so the move in bonds has translated into rising inflation expectations — now solidly above 2.5% for the next decade. The persistence of negative real yields is surprising – with the Fed likely to finally […]
The two front covers from The Economist, thirteen months apart, represent an overdue liberal education. Much of the mainstream press has heralded the energy transition to renewables as a source of jobs, innovation and everything else good including lower CO2 emissions. In September 2020 The Economist ran a leader titled Is it the end of […]
Yesterday the IMF warned central banks around the world to be “very, very vigilant” about inflation. The Fed and its peers employ legions of economists and it’s doubtful the IMF will have triggered a sudden reassessment in marble halls in Washington, Frankfurt or Tokyo. But their outlook will add to the growing concern investors have […]
Covid introduced us to first-time meetings over Zoom. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Jack Jeffords and Adam Bloomberg, from Mount Pleasant, SC, in person after having first met them both via a video call several months ago. Recognizing a familiar face along with the person’s voice reinforced how helpful it is to […]
In June of last year my wife and I fled the draconian lockdown imposed on New Jersey for the south (see Having a Better Pandemic in Charleston, SC). Whereas back then our autocratic governor had even forbidden a solitary walk in the park, Charleston SC felt like a world apart. We were left awestruck at […]
The global energy crisis is becoming the biggest investment story of 2021. US consumers are uniquely unaffected so far by spiraling prices for natural gas and coal. Crude oil continues to cause some discomfort at the White House, which regularly pleads with OPEC to offset their own policies by increasing supply. Limited export capacity for […]
The continued ascent in natural gas prices has transfixed the energy sector but hadn’t much impacted broad market commentary, until recently. Europe has an energy crisis to be sure – a combination of over-reliance on windpower, years of policy discouraging natural gas production and strong global demand for natural gas. If sentiment in the pipeline […]
Last week’s FOMC meeting for once gave the market something to ponder. The $120BN of monthly bond buying looks set to taper before the end of the year, and to be down to zero by next summer. Fed buying of mortgage-backed securities has been especially superfluous, as shown by the red-hot housing market. The market […]
A feature of renewables not widely acknowledged is their relatively low capacity utilization. Solar is limited to daytime, with peak generation around midday. Output is typically 20-25% of capacity, meaning a 10 MW solar farm would generate 48-60MWh every 24 hours. The UK’s windpower capacity utilization was 37% last year, higher than is typical. As […]
