Special Report
Tax Day: What April tells us about the deficit
Tax Day in the United States is more than an annual ritual of taxpayer compliance; it provides sovereign debt markets with essential clarity regarding federal revenues.
Latest Headlines
Business
Bank profits hold up in a higher-for-longer world
First-quarter earnings from Wall Street’s banking titans demonstrated that premier financial institutions have adapted with remarkable agility to restrictive interest rates.
World
How far will Japan let the yen fall?
The yen has reached the danger zone, sliding toward 151.8 per dollar—its weakest level in thirty-four years.
Economy
Immigration changes the jobs maths
The March employment report delivered another blowout figure, with non-farm payrolls expanding by 303,000 jobs and unemployment ticking down to 3.8 per cent.
Economy
Inflation's stall isn't a seasonal fluke
Financial commentators spent the opening months of 2024 attributing sticky inflation prints to residual January seasonal noise and contract resetting quirks.
Business
Reddit's IPO lets the public in
Reddit’s initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange delivered a classic day-one retail spectacle.
World
Japan raised rates. The yen fell anyway
The Bank of Japan delivered its first interest rate increase in seventeen years, yet the immediate market response was a counterintuitive slide in the domestic currency.
Economy
The Fed nudges its long-run rate higher
The Federal Open Market Committee held its policy rate steady at 5.25–5.50 per cent in March, but quantitative analysts focused intently on a subtle adjustment in the Summary of Economic Projections.
World
Japan ends negative rates
In a historic policy shift on 19 March, the Bank of Japan officially terminated seventeen years of unconventional monetary experimentation.
Business
Big Tech is now in the power business
The insatiable energy appetite of generative artificial intelligence has forced Big Tech into an unexpected corporate role: major industrial utility customer.
Markets & Finance
The Fed's banking lifeline expires
On 11 March, the Federal Reserve officially ceased issuing new loans under the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), terminating the emergency lending facility launched during the regional banking panic of 2023.
Economy
Why job numbers keep getting revised down
Macroeconomic forecasters have noticed a troubling pattern in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly payroll releases: initial blockbuster figures are routinely followed by substantial downward revisions.
Economy
The new normal for interest rates is higher
The Federal Reserve’s Summary of Economic Projections has quietly begun an analytical retreat from the era of secular stagnation.
Business
Capital One's real prize in Discover: the network
Capital One’s proposed $35.3 billion all-stock takeover of Discover Financial represents one of the most audacious banking consolidations since the 2008 financial crisis.
Markets & Finance
Office loans are going bad
The quiet deterioration in commercial real estate debt is entering a critical phase across commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS).
Tech
Nvidia adds $277bn in a day
On 22 February, Nvidia staged a display of market capitalization creation without historical precedent.
Economy
Japan and Britain slip into recession
Official fourth-quarter national accounts confirmed that two of the world's leading industrialized economies—Japan and the United Kingdom—slipped into technical recession in late 2023.
Business
NYCB's office loans come due
New York Community Bancorp’s disastrous earnings announcement served as a brutal reminder that the commercial real estate reckoning is actively unfolding on bank balance sheets.
Special Report
Valentine's Day: The chocolate crisis
Valentine’s Day arrived with an uncomfortably bitter reality for confectioners and consumers alike.
Markets & Finance
A hot inflation report hits short-term bonds
Fixed-income bulls received a rude awakening from the January consumer price index, as headline inflation printed at 3.1 per cent and core prices surged by an uncomfortably hot 0.4 per cent month-on-month.
Special Report
Super Bowl: Does football predict the bond market?
Wall Street has long indulged in statistical folklore, none more enduring than the Super Bowl Indicator—the superstitious notion that an NFC victory predicts an equity bull market while an AFC win foretells a bear cycle.
Special Report
Lunar New Year: China's stock market can't escape falling prices
As China enters the Year of the Dragon, domestic equity markets are finding little reason for celebratory animal spirits.
Economy
Did inflation's progress survive the revisions?
Fixed-income markets held their breath on 9 February as the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual benchmark revisions to the consumer price index.
Economy
353,000 jobs and no March cut
The January employment report delivered an absolute shock to the macro consensus, as non-farm payrolls surged by an eye-watering 353,000 jobs, while December’s figures were revised sharply higher.
Business
Meta pays its first dividend
Mark Zuckerberg’s 'year of efficiency' culminated in a corporate milestone: Meta Platforms announced its first-ever quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share, alongside a massive $50 billion expansion of its share repurchase programme.
Markets & Finance
The Treasury promises no more surprises
The US Treasury accomplished a masterclass in market psychology with its February quarterly refunding statement.
Economy
3.3% growth: too good to be true?
The US economy capped 2023 with a spectacular flourish, expanding at an annualized clip of 3.3 per cent in the fourth quarter and utterly pulverizing consensus expectations of a slowdown.
World
Japan wants pay rises before rate rises
The Bank of Japan held its benchmark policy rate steady at minus 0.1 per cent in January, disappointing traders anticipating an immediate end to negative interest rates.
Markets & Finance
Banks pay the bill for last year's failures
America’s premier banking institutions are paying the final financial bill for the regional banking panics of early 2023.
Markets & Finance
Banks borrow from the Fed to earn more from the Fed
In the quiet corners of central bank plumbing, a lucrative arbitrage trade has flourished.
Economy
Why January inflation always looks bad
Financial markets have an unfortunate habit of overreacting to January inflation prints.
Economy
Shipping costs double as ships avoid the Red Sea
The commercial consequences of the Red Sea shipping crisis are accelerating through global trade lanes.
Markets & Finance
Seven stocks, almost a third of the market
The concentration of the US stock market has reached proportions that challenge modern portfolio theory.
Economy
The Fed's money drain is about to get real
The Federal Reserve’s quantitative tightening (QT) programme has operated quietly in the background, absorbing nearly $1 trillion in sovereign and mortgage debt without disrupting financial plumbing.
Special Report
New Year: Markets want six rate cuts. They'll be disappointed
Wall Street enters 2024 in a state of euphoric anticipation, with forward markets pricing in six quarter-point interest rate reductions beginning as early as March.
Special Report
New Year's Eve: A dead year for deals
Investment bankers will look back on 2023 as an unmitigated disaster for corporate dealmaking.
Economy
2023: The recession that never came
As 2023 draws to a close, economists and macroeconomic forecasters must confront a humbling reality: the universal recession call that dominated market consensus twelve months ago was spectacularly wrong.
Economy
Red Sea attacks threaten cheaper goods
Houthi missile and drone strikes against commercial maritime shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb strait have forced global shipping giants, led by Maersk, to pause Red Sea transits.
Special Report
Boxing Day: The year-end squeeze in money markets
While equity investors were enjoying eggnog and holiday rallies, money market desks were navigating the quiet, annual liquidity squeeze that accompanies year-end balance-sheet reporting.
Special Report
Christmas: Is the Santa rally real?
The final trading days of December are traditionally greeted on Wall Street with mystical references to the 'Santa Claus rally'—the statistical tendency for equities to drift higher into year-end.
U.S.
Japan wants US Steel. Washington may say no
Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion acquisition of US Steel at $55 per share represents a forty per cent premium that industrial logic can readily justify.
World
Japan is the last to keep rates below zero
The Bank of Japan stands alone as the final holdout of negative interest rate policy.
Economy
The Fed pivots
Jerome Powell completed his historic rhetorical pivot at the December FOMC meeting, handing financial markets an early holiday gift.
Economy
Can the Fed really cut six times?
Financial markets have fully embraced the fantasy of an immaculate macroeconomic landing.
Business
Companies rush to borrow before rates fall
Corporate financial officers have witnessed a miraculous transformation in borrowing conditions.
Markets & Finance
The great bond rally
November 2023 will go down as one of the most explosive fixed-income rallies on record.
Economy
Inflation is already at target, if you squint
Disinflation has arrived, but its precise velocity depends on which statistical lens an analyst chooses to apply.
Economy
A Fed hawk hints at cuts
When Christopher Waller speaks, monetary markets listen with rapt attention.
Special Report
Cyber Monday: Record spending on borrowed money
Cyber Monday set a staggering new record, with American online shoppers racking up $12.4 billion in purchases in twenty-four hours.
Tech
OpenAI's boardroom drama and Microsoft's $13bn exposure
The weekend putsch that briefly ousted Sam Altman from OpenAI before his triumphant reinstatement will be analyzed for years as corporate governance absurdism.
