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.
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, the whole world is making it seem like one made-up data point from our buddies in Washington D.C. is going to determine all human fate for all time. Give me a break. They’re going to trot out some watered-down number for inflation which represents about 1/4th the true inflation rate. In an event, here is the recent fiction reading, along with forecasts (left side) and last (right side) at the top of the charts.
The public seems to think that the only thing that’s need to cure all our economic woes is for inflation to go away. “Disinflation” is the Fed’s favorite propaganda word these days, and “the pivot” is what all the bulls salivate about. But look at the chart below. It shows the consumer price index. Looks great, doesn’t it? Not just dis-inflation, or no-flation, but steadily dropping prices. Oh, and if you’ll note in the timeline, this is the Great Depression. So, yeah, I think a pivot will come, and I think deflation will take hold. But I also think people will eventually realize they’ve been duped.
Well, the latest PPI and retail numbers came out, and while PPI was right on the money, retail was quite weak (right column is forecast, and the left column is actual).
There are obviously thousands of possible outcomes to the equity markets following Thursday morning’s pre-market CPI release, but I wanted to sketch out three of them just to muse on the topic. There’s not a doubt in my mind that Thursday January 12th will be the most important and exciting trading day of the year so far. All three of these charts are of the S&P 500 /ES equity futures market. Here’s the first:
