Tag Archives | Michael Barr

MIB Daily: The Bond Market Is Doing the Fed’s Hiking, a 5.292% 10-Year Defies Cooler PCE as Tech Stands Alone, Banks and Pharma Get New Rules and Crude’s September Surge Tests the Pause Before Friday’s Payrolls

A cooler August PCE cut October hike odds to about 37% from 51%, and Goldman pushed its next-hike call to December. Bonds balked: the 10-year rose 5.0 bps to 5.292%, highest since April 2002 per Investing.com, and 30-year mortgage rates hit 7.30%. A late selloff left only the Nasdaq 100 higher. The Fed finalized a stress-test overhaul over Barr’s dissent, CMS tied Part B drug rebates to international prices, and Amazon signed a 20-year nuclear deal with Constellation.

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MIB Daily: A Later Hike Is Not an Easier One as the 30-Year Hits Its Highest Since 2002, Crude Slips Below $90 While Confidence Sinks, and OpenAI’s $70B Run-Rate Lifts Chip Equipment as AI Agents Threaten Apple

WTI slid 3.98% to $88.91 as Kpler counted 12.5 million barrels loaded at Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu, while Iran awaits a formal US reply through Qatar. NY Fed’s Williams saw “no need for urgency,” pulling October hike odds to about a coin flip, but Barr and Goolsbee held the tightening line. The 30-year still touched its highest since 2002 intraday. Confidence sank to 81.9 against 89.2 expected. Axios put OpenAI’s run-rate near $70B as chip-equipment names lifted the Nasdaq 100.

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MIB Weekly: The Economy Was Too Strong to Save the Bond Market, 10-Year at a 2007 High and October Odds Near 70%, Agents Priced by Usage, the Build-Out Short of Power, the Median Stock 18.6% Below

The 10-year Treasury closed Thursday at 5.225%, its highest since 2007, after a flash PMI at 58.4 and eight Fed speakers pushed October hike odds to roughly 70% — and yet the S&P 500 finished up 1.21%. That gain belonged to almost nobody: the Nasdaq 100 rose 3.25% on Meta (+12.90%), Qualcomm (+13.65%), Intel (+13.26%) and AMD (+12.65%), while the NYSE Composite and the Russell 2000 both fell. Oracle lost 7.12% on a force-majeure notice over its New Mexico data centre.

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MIB Daily: The 10-Year Hit 5.11%, Its Highest Since 2007, as a Hot PMI Turned Good News Into Rate Risk and Brent Topped $100, Leaving Stocks With No Bond Hedge and Small Caps and Utilities Hit Hardest

The 10-year yield jumped 16.2 bps to 5.110%, highest since June 2007, after a hot flash PMI (58.4) and a weak 5-year auction. Stocks fell with bonds: S&P 500 -0.75%, Russell 2000 -1.77%. Fed’s Barr: further adjustments “likely to be needed”; October hike odds near 73%. Brent surged 4.43% back above $100 on Iran’s UN defiance despite a US crude build. McDonald’s sank 4.81% on flat-traffic guidance. Bessent is “open” to extending the China truce before Thursday’s Xi summit.

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MIB Daily: The Hedges Failed at the Moment of the Crisis, Gold -2.39% and Treasuries Sold Off as WTI Jumped 5.82% to $90.75, Debt-Financed AI Lost 5-7%, and Soft JOLTS Left Hike Odds at 66% Into Friday’s Payrolls

US forces struck IRGC targets inside Iran; WTI jumped 5.82% to $90.75 and Energy was the only green sector of note. The 10-Year hit a one-year high of 4.799% and gutted software — Oracle -5.23%, CrowdStrike -6.90%. Soft JOLTS and a cooling ISM left September hike odds at 66%. Gold fell 2.39%; the safe-haven bid never came. Anthropic signed a $35 billion cloud deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda. A judge let the shale price-fixing case proceed against Exxon, EOG and Occidental.

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  ANNOUNCEMENT : The next generation WLEI3 had its first out-of-sample update! An auspicious moment for index builders.