Showing posts with label rate cuts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rate cuts. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Ruble is up 11% since the rate cuts last June. I said to buy it back then.

The ruble is up 11% since the rate cuts last June. I said to BUY THE RUBLE at the time. By the way, an 11% move in currency markets is big.

Rate cuts are bullish for currency, all else equal. People don't understand that, yet we see it over and over again.

Rate cuts are price reductions--deflationary. It literally means the currency has more purchasing power. It's reflected in forex markets as a higher exchange rate.

Rate hikes are the opposite. They are bearish, not bullish. Rate hikes are price increases and that means the currency buys less, not more. It's reflected in forex markets as lower exchange rate.

Another way to think about it is, a currency is like a government security of zero maturity. Everyone understands that when the central bank raises rates the PRICE of the government security (a Treasury, for example) goes DOWN. Price is inverse to the rate. The discount to "par" reflects the interest rate. 

Conversely, when the central bank cuts rates the PRICE of the government security goes UP.

Same with currency. The dollar is a Treasury of zero maturity.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Bet against the fools when the Fed raises rates. It's a lock!

Mike Norman Economics

They were all wrong about monetary policy and in particular the rate cuts, ZIRP, QE, balance sheet expansion, everything. They had it all wrong. 

People like Schiff, Faber, Rogers, Reinhart & Rogoff, Bill Gross, Martin Feldstein, the GOP, Obama, and so many more. Quacks and elite quacks. Ideologues. Snake oil salesmen and snake oil saleswomen.

We were told that interest rates would spike, there was going to be hyperinflation, gold would soar to $5,000 an ounce or higher, the dollar would get crushed, yada, yada, yada.

Some are still saying it.

Now as we are on the verge of the first rate hike in seven years many of these same quacks and fools are warning of dire consequences. They're saying that the Fed has no room to "undo" what it did, that it will bring on dire consequences, that the bubble it created will blow up with a ferocity of the Bikini Atoll H-bomb test.

What do YOU think will happen?

I'll tell you what I think will happen. The exact opposite of what the aforementioned, "Gang of Clueless" think is going to happen.

Even if I didn't know a stick of economics (MMT economics), I would bet the ranch and do the opposite of whatever those idiots say just because they've been sooo wrong for so long on so many things. Now they're talking about the dire consequences of  the coming rate hike cycle.

Ha!

Wild horses couldn't keep me from betting against these fools even if I knew nothing.

Any good horse racing handicapper will tell you that you always bet on form. If a horse is prone to winning and if that horse is prone to winning even more consistently under certain conditions then you bet and you bet aggressively. But these horses are prone to BEING WRONG AND LOSING! So I will bet heavily against them.

That’s what I will be doing.

So...rate hikes? Yep...and stocks soar, dollar crashes, commodities finally get off the floor.

Why? 

Because it's the opposite of what we've been doing for the last eight years, which has been to cut rates, strip the economy of assets (central banks are doing this) and take income away from people. 

Sure, you're helping a few folks get cheaper credit, but they have to pay it back to the banks so the banks are the ones who earn and more importantly, lower rates set the price lower of many other things.

On the other hand, when the government starts issuing people checks--I don't care whether that's a Social Security check or a payment to a doctor via Medicare or INTEREST PAYMENTS--that's  money to keep and money to spend and that's a fiscal stimulus.

The past eight years have been deflationary. The idiots got it wrong. WE got it right. The next few years of rate hikes will start the boom cycle again. Buy stocks, buy commodities, short the dollar, short bonds, clean up make a fortune and invite me on your sailboat or yacht, but make sure it's somewhere warm where the water's nice and clear.