Alhambra Investment Partners, LLC

Nominal personal spending grew by just over 4% in October 2016, a number that sounds impressive by virtue of what we have become used to in this economy. That was much less than the 5.2% in spending...

While certain markets continue to dream of the economy that might be, we continue to be stuck with the economy that continues to be nothing like it. Last week the Census Bureau reported that exports...

Before October 1997, what would become known as the Asian flu was just another opportunity for the mainstream to dismiss what many people, including many prominent, competent people, had been warning...

After sticking around 53 bps since the middle of September, 1-month LIBOR has jumped almost 7 bps since November 11 to register above 60 bps for the first time in years. With the December 2016 FOMC...

That the repo market, as noted yesterday, has been beset by a persistent collateral shortage is relatively uncontroversial. Where once large blocks of MBS tranches were central to interbank flow and...

It is an apparent contradiction to where we can describe a desperate money supply situation yet stock prices, in particular, are at all-time highs, or at least outwardly unconcerned about all of it....

Consumer prices accelerated again in October 2016, with the overall CPI calculating a 1.64% inflation rate. That is up from 1.46% in September, and the highest since October 2014. The reason is energy...

Clichés are clichés for a reason, largely because their meaning no longer requires precision in order to communicate information. Because of that, their use is usually limited to...

The rout in EM’s continued into this week, suggesting that the negative reactions last week may have been more than reflexive recoiling to whatever catalyst. The media is struggling to figure it...

Where are we in history when the avowed Socialist (capital “S”) from Vermont is the only voice of reason for the Democratic Party in the aftermath of last week’s election? I...

China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) reported a large drop in forex assets in October. This was unsurprising given what we already know of “dollar” conditions from...

Back in June I mused about a Trump election: Forget for a minute that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. Think about the policies he is likely to propose as President and how they might affect...

The BLS reported that the rate of hiring in the US continues to be sluggish and sideways. Total hiring across the labor market was estimated to be 5.08 million (SA) in September, down from August and...

Wholesale sales were flat in September, and flat overall for the quarter. They had declined sharply in July, rebounded in August, only to go nowhere for all the trouble. It is perfectly reminiscent of...

In early November 2012, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that China’s exports were figured by the Customs Bureau to have been about $175.57 billion for October that year. It...

The LMCI was positive in October for the third time in the past five months. Revisions are to be expected in any statistic, but more so with the Fed’s factor model by its construction where it...