Will the Treasury twist if the Chinese dump?

October 13, 2025 Before getting to today’s note, I want to highlight some of my upcoming speaking events below. Please contact your JEF salesperson if you are interested in attending. Oct 14: DC – EM Group cocktail event Oct 15: NYC – Groupwide dinner event Oct 16:...

You can’t fatten up the pig the day before the fair

As I was on the driving range one morning getting ready for a Saturday golf game, our club pro was giving me a few tips on how to work a deeper cut shot. In the background, I heard the distinctively southern accent of one of my favorite members. He sauntered over with...

You can’t remove something the Fed never had in the first place

In his 1962 classic essay – Should there be an independent monetary authority? - Milton Friedman posits the following: "The problem is to establish institutional arrangements that will enable government to exercise responsibility for money, yet will at the same time...

A normative CNBC interview tomorrow

In the late spring of 1991, I entered the Mariner S Eccles building on 20th Street and Constitution Ave in Washington DC for the first time. I had just finished my fourth year of graduate school in the Economics Department at the University of Rochester, and I was...

The “uncertainty” hoax

For the naysayers who have completely misjudged financial markets this year, the word “uncertainty” has become a constant cover for failure. These folks have let politically charged hostility take over their investment process. As a result, they are now in desperate...

A cogent and convincing case for sharply lower interest rates

Before turning to the hot topic of future Fed rate cuts, let me say a few words about performance. So far this year, our beloved risk parity trading strategy registered a +13.75% total return, with spoos +7.75% and blues +6%. That +29.4% annualized run rate ranks as...

Will every 10bps back up in USTs become a “Liz Truss” moment?

With the markets calming, I have not written in a couple weeks. That said, during the chaos of April and early May, I wrote much more than usual. And in each of those past notes, I tried to counter the relentless negativity from so many clients, competitors, and...

Emotional Arbitrage

Towards the end of the 1987 movie classic Wall Street, as BlueStar Airlines stock was collapsing, a calm Bud Fox enters into the following telephone exchange with an emotional Gordon Gekko: Bud: "You once told me don’t get emotional about stock, Gordon. Don’t. The bid...

Is the TWD a guiding light for Plaza 2.0?

Away from all the “we are in recession now” folks choking on their breakfast sandwiches just after Friday's strong payroll release, a sleepy currency pair was lurching onto the financial market center stage. The Taiwan dollar, which almost always trades in highly...