Australian dollar jackknifes violently

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DXY is getting hosed as Fed hopes metastasise. EUR is on a moonshot:

AUD has jacknifed:

Oil looks ominous:

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Base metals relief:

Big miners too, despite iron ore:

But EM is sitting this out entirely as the tyrant rises:

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Treasuries were gobbled up:

But stock dumped anyway on tech earnings trouble:

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Another bear market rally of sorts is underway. But the market’s hopes for a benign Fed has three very large problems.

First, growth in the US is booming:

Second, inflation nowcasts are super sticky above 5%:

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Third, the more market rallies, the easier the FCI gets, making points one and two both stronger not weaker.

I am encouraged that bonds are rallying and stocks not so much. That is a change that is indicative of us being closer to end-of-cycle dynamics.

However, the Fed still has more work to do. A few weeks of warm weather in Europe to ease energy fears does not a winter make. And Chinese growth is getting worse by the minute.

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I can’t see DXY topping persuasively until the threat of a Fed-induced market accident is gone and global growth shows promise of a rebound. That makes the last few days of intervention in JPY and CNY Pyrrhic at best.

For me, AUD is enjoying a relief rally with lower yet to come.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
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