All Reports

As many dealers expected, the U.S. Treasury Department retained its previous guidance for future debt issuance: no change to Treasury note and bond (coupon) auction sizes for at least the next several quarters, meaning well…

Bloomberg reported yesterday (link) and today (link) about the fact that the U.S. Treasury Department has been “rebuffing” Wall Street strategists’ suggestions to change its forward guidance pertaining to the future composition of its debt…

I wrote earlier about Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s support of Japan’s announcement that it will borrow from the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) heretofore obscure FIMA Repo Facility and his comment that he would encourage the Fed…

I wrote yesterday about why I assumed the U.S. Treasury Department had undertaken a rare joint intervention with Japan to prop up the yen (link). Thereafter, Japan’s Finance Minister issued a statement that it will…

The collapse and subsequent fire sale of the large, highly leveraged, ironically named AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness generated a great deal of press coverage last week, but little if any that connected the fund’s…

Earlier this week, Procter & Gamble reported just 1% organic sales growth in its fiscal year 2026 (ended June), its lowest annual growth rate over the past 20 years (link). Part of the sales weakness…

Included in the batch of government data released this morning were inflation-adjusted income (real disposable personal income from the BEA’s Personal Income and Outlays report), inflation-adjusted consumer spending (real personal consumption expenditures, or PCE) and…

I wrote last evening about falling solid waste volumes as yet another indication of the state of the real economy (link). This morning, the consumer products giant Procter & Gamble missed consensus on sales, with…

WM, formerly known as Waste Management, reported its 2Q results today, which included a 1.8% decline in its collection and disposal volume and a reduction of its full-year volume expectations (link). The volume decline was…

I received word that International Paper, the largest North American (N.A.) containerboard producer, announced an $80/ton price increase on linerboard and medium and $130/ton on white linerboard, effective September 1. IP’s announcement follows Packaging Corp.’s…

The Federal Reserve (Fed) will decide next week whether to raise interest rates, with markets pricing in a 38% change of a quarter point hike on Wednesday (link). On the one hand, there’s every reason…

Even though consumer spending accounts for 68% of U.S. GDP, it’s had increasingly little bearing on the level of the S&P 500 in recent years thanks to tech companies’ growing dominance and to the increasingly…

I wrote last week (link) about the ongoing explosion of margin debt provided by broker-dealers, which is growing at historically high rates and disproportionately to any relevant measure one can think of (U.S. GDP, U.S….

I’ve written over the past couple of years (link) about U.S. banks’ rapidly growing preference for lending to other financial institutions (nondepository financial institutions/NDFIs) and for the purpose of buying securities (margin loans) in lieu…

I wrote yesterday about the ongoing explosion of margin debt provided by broker-dealers: it hit a new record of $1.5 trillion in June, up nearly 50% YoY and growing wildly disproportionately to the U.S. economy…