While there was a ton of “polycrisis” news this week, there were just two reports:
- Fed Balance Sheet (WALCL): +3.4B w/w. Mostly unchanged.
- ISM Services: actual 50.3, expected 52.2. Flat.
Rates appear to be lining up for a 25 bp rate increase ahead of the Fed meeting coming up on Wednesday, June 14th. The odds of that 25 bp rate increase, according to CME Fedwatch Tool: 70%. That’s not a pivot, for those keeping score at home.
The buck moved lower, dropping 0.42 [-0.40%] to 103.53. All of the selling happened on Thursday, which was enough to pull the buck into a daily downtrend. Could this be a lower high? It could.
For those waiting eagerly for de-dollarization and the surge move into the RMB…this week the RMB rose 0.65% [+0.05 to 7.13] vs the buck, once again going in the wrong direction for RMB/de-dollarization. (Rising RMB means you get more RMB for each dollar you spend). China Update is full of bad news. Apparently, the whole “China Growth Model” (where the central government prods the local governments into borrowing-then-spending money on initially great, but then progressively more pointless “infrastructure”, as well as apartment construction that is super useful at first, but then progressively, nobody really needs) has finally run out of gas.
But I guess that is a more benign bit of malfeasance than sending money off to Ukraine (or Afghanistan, or wherever) to fund endless wars. And the Mainland does have nice trains, so there’s that.
Crude (the master resource) had a bad week. This was surprising, given Saudi Arabia announced production cuts over the weekend, which initially caused a large spike higher at the open on Monday. But by the end of week, crude had been pounded down 1.57 [-2.19%] to 70.17. Crude is now back in a downtrend in all 3 timeframes.
This week, the pillaging continued at the SPR, with the total dropping 1.867 million barrels. That said – there were claims that the Biden-Handlers had finally deigned to start refilling the half-drained emergency reserve this week. “US buys over 3 million barrels for oil stockpile, announces plan for 3 million more” gushed Regime Media (Source – Pfizer/Reuters).
by randommike 
