Jim Bianco Profile picture
Sep 22, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read Read on X
I think everyone is getting Evergrande backwards.

It's not what a default means for China. Rather it's what happened to China to cause a default.

Start with this chart. Economists are hacking China growth forecasts, and the downgrades are accelerating.

1/5
These downgrades are consistent with the Economic Strength Indices (ESI) compiled by our colleagues at @DataArbor . They measure incoming economic data versus its 1-year average.

China’s ESI has been falling and recently turned negative.

2/5
Currently, China (orange) is the only large economy with an ESI below zero.

3/5
BB Credit Impulse Index.

It measures the change in household and non-fin liabilities (credit) divided by GDP. The Chinese economy is deleveraging, so it should come as no surprise that China’s largest (leveraged) property co, Evergrande (and junk credit), is in trouble.

4/5
The Chinese economy is hitting the skids hard. Their most vulnerable companies are in trouble and the government is cracking down on the private sector. The People’s Bank of China is injecting huge sums of liquidity into the economy, its most since January.

5/5

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More from @biancoresearch

Apr 16
1/15

What's going on with the bond market?

It is not pretty.

And if the bond market is ugly, everyone else suffers.

🧵
2/15

First, let's remember how this year started.

On December 18, 2023, BofA published its December 2023 Global Fund Manager Survey.

This graphic shows that these managers were the most bullish on rates since they started asking the question 20 years ago (2003). Image
3/15

Global fund managers agreed that 2024 would be the best time to be long-duration (lower rates) in the last 2 decades.

They were more bullish on rates now than on the 2008 financial crisis or the 2020 global economy shutdown (both were massive gains, if long-duration).
Read 15 tweets
Apr 11
1/13

The street has had a tough 24 hours.

Rallied bonds/stocks into CPI, thinking they would miss the consensus (below). Instead, they beat the consensus (above).

This morning, they sold off stocks/bonds into PPI, thinking they would beat. Instead, they missed.

🧵
2/13

We need to ask why getting a handle on inflation is so hard.

My take ....

* Inflation is incredibly hard to predict. It might be the hardest of all economic indicators.

* Everyone believes inflation is the easiest to predict.
3/13

So, let's start with what I believe everyone still needs to understand ...

The COVID lockdown/restart of the economy was the biggest ECONOMIC event of our lifetime. Bigger than the financial crisis.

It changed the economy in ways we see but do not want to accept.
Read 14 tweets
Apr 5
1/8

Late afternoon🧵on the bond market

1-Day tick chart of the 10-year yield

The 10-year yield sold off back to the day's high yield, closing at 4.40%.Image
2/8

The 10-year yield closed on the 50% retracement (cyan line, 4.40%), the highest since Nov 27.

Will it hold?

Ultimately, I don't think it does.

For months, I have been in the camp since the 10-year trades 5.00% (last year's high) to 5.50% later this year.

Still thereImage
3/8

1-day tick chart of the 2-year yield

The 2-year sold off hard in the afternoon and closed at 4.75%.Image
Read 9 tweets
Apr 4
1/5

Payroll Report Preview 🧵

Economists’ median estimate for tomorrow’s payroll release is 215k. Estimates range from 150k to 250k.

Note that February was initially reported as 275k. So, every one of the 61 forecasts has payrolls declining from last month. Image
2/5

Since the beginning of 2022, economists have often underestimated the actual payroll release.

During these 26 months, economists underestimated payrolls 22 times. Image
3/5

The BLS surveys 120k "establishments" employing about one-third of the US labor force.

Lately, the survey’s response rate has been falling and becoming an issue.

The February payroll report’s initial response rate was 66.9% (blue line), which is higher than January's 56% (and December's 49%) but remains low compared to past decades.

As the red and purple lines show, the BLS follows up in the ensuing months to get the missing responses. But even these are falling.Image
Read 5 tweets
Mar 30
1/10

Grant Williams (@ttmygh) said we are a "Society of Speculators."

He is 100% correct, ir maybe more than 100%.

And if you understand this, many things start to make sense ... from TV viewership to markets.

🧵
2/10

Sports gambling is booming! And it is changing culture.

statista.com/chart/29332/gr…
Image
3/10

Where is this sports gambling showing up? Selected ratings of TV shows.

93 of the top 100 TV shows in 2023 were NFL games



And the Super Bowl smashed its old TV ratings with 123 million viewers.sportico.com/business/media…
Read 10 tweets
Mar 28
1/4

Here are a couple of thoughts on tomorrow's PCE report (remember, there will be no market reaction as they are closed).

I will focus on what the Fed focuses on: Core PCE.

Below are the 57 economist forecasts, as surveyed by Bloomberg.

For the February Core PCE measure, the median estimate is 0.3%.
52 of the 57 are projecting 0.30%.
1 of 57 is projecting 0.4%
4 of 57 is projecting 0.2%

At his March 20 Presser, Powell said he expects 0.30%

Last Night, Governor Waller said in his speech that he also expects 0.3%.

So ... let's take a wild guess as to what everyone is looking for 🤔Image
2/4

PCE is compiled from the same survey of prices from which CPI and PPI are derived.

So, once these reports are released, it is an exercise to reweight them for core PCE. This produces a fairly accurate forecast.

For the February Core PCE report, this is 0.3%, with a few forecasts rounding to 0.2% or 0.4%.

3/4

This next chart shows Core PCE ... year-over-year as the line and month-over-month are the bars.
Blue is actual through December.

Red is January, which is subject to revision (and expected to be slightly higher; see @NickTimiraos above), and February (released tomorrow morning).

Orange is a projection for the next several months, assuming the upcoming month's average is 0.33%, its two-year average (orange bars).

If the assumption of 0.33% monthly Core PCE is accurate, again, it is the average of the last two years, and the last two months, then Core PCE should bottom around 2.8% and move well above 3%.

Why? See the green bars in the bottom panel. These are the monthly measures to be dropped from the year-over-year calculation (known as the base effect).

They are falling, and the "hurdle" to keeping Core PCE "sticky" at 3+% this year is getting easier to jump over.

If so, this should end the discussion of rate cuts.Image
Read 4 tweets

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