U.S. debt has surged by over $10 trillion in less than five years, largely due to massive pandemic-era spending.
Beginning in 2020, the government unleashed trillions through stimulus checks, unemployment aid, and small business loans under the CARES Act, followed by the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in 2021. Although borrowing briefly slowed in 2022, new spending on infrastructure, social programs (Inflation Reduction Act), and defense reignited debt growth. Meanwhile, rising interest rates from the Federal Reserve’s inflation fight made servicing the debt far more expensive, pushing annual interest payments into the hundreds of billions. Despite strong tax revenues, the U.S. has run trillion-dollar deficits every year since 2019. Repeated debt-ceiling battles have failed to curb borrowing, as Congress consistently raises or suspends the limit. For investors, the result is a surge in Treasury supply that keeps long-term yields and borrowing costs high, while inflation expectations remain elevated—driving continued interest in gold, TIPS, and real assets as inflation hedges. Source: StockMarket.news, www.zerohedge.com
China’s gross domestic product expanded by 4.8% in the third quarter from a year ago, a slowdown from 5.2% in the second quarter, and the weakest in a year.
👉 Fixed-asset investment, which includes real estate, unexpectedly FELL by 0.5% in the first nine months of the year (Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.1% growth). This drop is alarming. The last time China recorded a contraction in fixed-asset investment was in 2020 during the pandemic, according to data going back to 1992 from Wind Information. The single-month September FAI declined by 9.8% based on estimates !!! 👉 Industrial production grew by 6.5% year-on-year in September, faster than the 5% forecast and 5.2% growth in the prior month. 👉 Retail sales rose 3% in September from a year ago, matching analyst forecasts. Source: CNBC, Augur Infinity
Liquidity back to normal? Standing Repo facility (SRF) usage from $8.35BN to $0
Note however that SRF dropping to zero doesn’t mean liquidity is back to normal. It just means no one tapped it today. The stress can still be there, just shifted elsewhere. Time will tell.
The US just posted a massive surplus of +$198 Billion for the month of September.
Total Receipts: $544B Total Outlays: $346B $30 Billion in tariffs collected. Source: Geiger Capital
Interesting comment on X by @Andreas Steno on X about a worrying development that took place yesterday.
As financials and regionals are getting hammered with signs of stress in USD money market, the SOFR - Fed funds spread keeps widening… Maybe the Fed will be involved earlier than they think on the QT ending stuff...
US funding market stress >>> Surging SOFR rates signaling a liquidity shortage
The most important indicator, as always, remains the SOFR rate: should the recent drift higher continue, the self-fulfilling cascade of a liquidity shortage will almost certainly be activated. And it did worsen... Source: zerohedge
Relative to inflation, Gold has never been higher than it is today. 13x vs. 9x at the peak in 1980.
Source: Charlie Bilello
Really important chart from @Econimica
QT NEVER happened in 10+yr USTs post-2022. The Fed still holds a large amount of long-term debt. The QT mainly took place through short-term Treasuries (the blue line). As explained by StockMarket.news, over the last few years, the Fed has been draining some money out of the system but doing it in a very controlled way. It’s avoiding a big sell-off in long-term bonds because that could cause interest rates to spike and hurt the economy. So while it looks like the Fed is being tough with QT, the reality is softer the real tightening is happening with short-term bonds, while the long-term side still has a safety net. It’s a reminder that even when the Fed says it’s tightening, it’s still making sure the markets don’t fall apart.
