1/5 A thread to go over my interpretation of interest rates.
First this is what the market currently has priced in. 36% for the 5th hike in Feb 2023 is the highest ever.
First hike in March is now 86%. At this point any talk of no hike in March would move the market.
2/5
Earlier this morning Mike Wilson of Morgan Stanley was on Bloomberg TV. He is looking for 1.60% on 2-year yields at mid-year (from 0.945%).
3/5
This fits our view that the 10-year minus 2-year curve can invert by mid-year.
4/5
Why are 10yr ylds trending sideways as 2yr ylds relentlessly rise?
10yr ylds are a risk-off instrument, not an inflation pay. The fact that 10yr ylds are not rising in the face of inflation is a market signal that the Fed is going to hike too much and break something.
5/5
We will know when the Fed has “broken something” when/if the yield curve inverts.
It might not be obvious what broke the day the yield curve inverts, but the market will be signaling that something is indeed broken and it will be apparent in short order.
Bonus
Why will the Fed hike so much they will break something?
Inflation got away from them and is now intensely political. The economists can leave the FOMC board room. Hiking to address inflation is now the domain of politics and PR people worried about Fed optics.
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Thoughts on market reaction to the Venezuela news.
tl:dr
The spigot in Venezuela waiting to be opened to flood the world with crude oil and lower its price has been broken for a while.
It will take several years to fix it.
2/5
Venezuela is a founding member of OPEC their official statistics show its production (blue) is down 71% from its 1998 peak.
Its sustainable capacity (max output in within 90 days and held for a year) is 1M barrels/day (orange).
Venezuela is at its maximum now.
3/5
Why the big production decline?
Socialist Hugo Chávez was elected in December 1998. He turned out to be a brutal dictator. Only to be replaced by an even more brutal dictator, Nicolás Maduro, when Chávez died in March 2013.
It is correct that the new home premium (green) above existing home prices (blue) has collapsed from 38% in 2013 to below zero today (the lowest in 54 years).
Why?
See new home prices (orange), they stalled.
3/7
Here is the average home price (orange) and the home's size (blue). The reason prices are falling is that builders are constructing smaller homes.
But as the bottom panel shows (green), the price per square foot is as high as ever.