Syz the moment

The aim is to "increase the accessibility and availability of Board news and educational content." Let see if the young generation finds this picture inspiring...

Still, this stopgap bill is only a temporary solution. They are just kicking the can down he road another time. Indeed, the House and Senate are both struggling to approve yearlong spending bills, and the gulf between the two parties remains vast. And as highlighted by the Kobeissi letter, there is still NO LONG-TERM PLAN. For nearly 20 years, it was effectively free for the US to issue debt as debt service costs were ~1.5%. Now, debt service costs have doubled to 3% and will rise toward 5% as rates skyrocket. To put this in perspective, 5% on $33 trillion is ~$1.7 trillion PER YEAR on interest expense. As deficit spending rises, rates are also rising as the US issues trillions in bonds to cover the deficit. It's a never ending cycle of borrowing to spend which is driving rates higher and leading to interest expense being 20% of US revenue... How are they going to fix this? Source: CBO, The Kobeissi Letter

So it's not so much the peak or pause in rate hikes that matters, but rather what happens to the Fed balance sheet & reverse repo operations. Source: HolgerZ, Bloomberg

This is probably what the FED wants to see...until something breaks... Source: www.zerohedge.com, Bloomberg

Since last week’s Fed meeting, the 10-year note yield is up 35 basis points. Since the last Fed rate hike in July, the 10-year note yield is up 60 basis points. Meanwhile, Fed rate HIKE expectations have NOT changed. As highlighted by the Kobeissi Letter, odds of another rate hike have actually gone DOWN. But, a long Fed PAUSE is being priced-in now. All as record levels of US Treasuries are being issued while FED balance sheet reduction pace has been accelerating (QT). This bear steepening is pushing the dollar UP and weighing on stocks valuations especially long duration ones, i.e tech darlings. Source. CNBC, The Kobeissi Letter

The FED has booked $100 billion in losses in recent months on operations that currently involve paying more in interest to banks on reserve deposits at the Fed than the central bank earns from its roughly $7.5 trillion portfolio of bonds and mortgage-backed securities. Source: www.zerohedge.com, Bloomberg

On July 26th, the Fed raised rates and said they were not longer expecting a recession. The Fed marked the EXACT high in the S&P 500 which just hit its lowest levels since June. Since then, rate cut expectations were pushed out by a year and corporate bankruptcies hit their highest levels since the pandemic. Is the market losing faith in the Fed again? Source: The Kobeissi Letter

Last week, the Fed's balance sheet plunged by almost $75BN last week, its biggest weekly drop since July 2020. The Fed's balance sheet is now over 10% below its April 2022 peak. But this is WITHOUT taking into account the current drop in value of the bonds held on the balance sheet. Indeed, if they were to be re-evaluated using a mark-to-market methodology, the Fed's assets could be reduced by another $1 trillion. To provide some context, he recent decline in market value would likely exceed the entirety of their QT policy thus far, which accounted for $939B. This would essentially revert their balance sheet size back to 2020 levels. Source: Bloomberg, Tavi Costa