Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

BoJ, FOMC and Where to Now?

By -

Below is the opening segment of the September 25 edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 414…

The Bank of Japan gave us a glimpse as to just how far down the rabbit hole we may have to follow global policy makers as we try to make sense of ever more complex and shall we say, innovative ‘tools’ being used in the effort to engineer individual economies and asset markets within the global financial system. BoJ announced it would conduct “JGB purchase operations” in order to “prevent the yield curve from deviating substantially from the current levels”.

The market initially interpreted this to mean BoJ stood in support of a rising yield curve, which would for example, help the banks (ref. MTU and SMFG, which exploded higher off of the support levels we had projected), but by the end of the week the Japanese Yield Curve had eased substantially and there seemed to be confusion about what the policy’s intent, or would-be effects, actually were. I wonder if the BoJ even fully knows what it is doing now. Lots of moving parts in a complex system.

(more…)

Mixed Pheelings

By -

Ahoy there from seven miles above California. I am winging my way back to my cherished Palo Alto, having enjoyed another weekend of fencing tournaments in which my beloved children did very well, thank you very much.

As you know, I am terrifically excited about the first debate on Monday night. My dear son and I have been practically counting the hours. Some people puzzle over why I would “waste my time” on such a thing. I assure you, I have the exact same feelings about every spectator sport known to man.

The countless millions of hours and billions of dollars that get sunk into baseball, football, soccer, basketball, and all the rest of it has never made sense to me. As for fencing, which is also a sport, I would say two things: (a) my family members are active participants (b) God knows it isn’t a spectator sport. I still don’t know what’s going on.

(more…)