UK Leasehold

Another story about how developers are inserting unfair clauses in leasehold contracts. There are a lot of these. The government is consulting on the issue. The current situation is unacceptable, in my opinion. The relationship between Persimmon and the average first time buyer is very asymmetrical. At the …

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Inflation

John Plender argues that central bank action will make treasuries and gilts (so called “safe assets”) less safe, in that it will increase the correlation of their prices with those of corresponding equities. It’s not Plender’s finest work, but it shows how inflation fears are being reported …

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Real rates are dropping fast

I finally got around to creating a FRED chart which combines two series. I could probably do it better, but I’m pleased with the result. This is for the US, but global monetary conditions are usually closely correlated (proof?).

What is interesting is that …

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New Month, New Quarter

Well, August finished up as the best month for the stock market in decades. Why, I have no idea, except “Stocks only go up!” (for those whose memories don’t go back to March).

To start, things are quiet, except I noticed:

• long Treasury bond futures …

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Honk Kong not so fragrant real estate market

Central HK office space is getting cheaper. It’s hardly a surprise that this is happening, although maybe it is a surprise that it’s happening so late. I don’t follow this market, although I am vaguely aware that the HK …

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Inflation expectation out of line with nominal yields

This is from the Market Ear. It shows how the TIPs market has different expectations of future inflation than the Treasury bond/note market. My money would be on the breakevens being right, if I had any.

Wrap

Seems as though terrible …

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Is Alexandra Elbakyan the Dell Glover of the science publishing industry?

Science’s pirate queen, Alexandra Elbakyan is threatening to be the Napster of science publishing. As others have observed, it’s bizarre that the World Wide Web, which was invented to share scientific journal articles freely and easily isn …

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Margin Debt is picking up

This is bullish.

Also put-call ratio for NDX at all time low: very bullish.

Spending on services is faltering

Wolf Street points this out. This is bearish (but may not alter the direction of travel). “Services” is such a mis-mash category: I always used to …

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Stock Market Warns Workers That They’re The Problem For Business

This is almost like a headline from The Onion, but actually is a deadly serious piece of research from a highly rated (by me) analyst. Clearly, humans are expensive, unreliable and occasionally dishonest, but only now have we been …

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Jackson Hole

It came as a surprise to nobody who is even vaguely aware of what Jackson Hole is (apart from a holiday resort) that J Powell is going to allow inflation to run hot and put more emphasis on jobs than price stability. There was quite a bit of …

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