Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Cervical Cancer Mortality Among US Women Younger Than 25 Years This study examines trends in cervical cancer mortality in US women aged younger than 25 years before and after the introduction of human papillomavirus vaccines.

The HPV vaccine has been recommended in the US since 2006. New study out today shows that cervical cancer deaths in young women in the years that followed have plummeted, decreasing 15% per year from 2013-2015.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

First of all, happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate.

CB watchers, how are we thinking about Dec? Fed, ECB, BoE, BoC, RBA? We just got the BoK cutting 25bps, surprising the street. We got the RBNZ explicitly not discussing 75bps. Which one will likely surprise the market big time? Why?

Here goes my first thread on Bluesky - we have a new Treasury Secretary!

Large rally in bonds to begin the week as the drama behind "who will sign the next batch of US Dollars" comes to an end. We will soon be carrying Scott Bessent's autograph in our pockets.

1/8

If you are a fundamental based trader or investor, you have probably found that your positions have become fairly (both positively and negatively) correlated across and within markets, which makes risk-taking more difficult.

Scanning outside of the FI market, the equity market seems to have the most diverse breadth of thematic opportunities on a market neutral basis. There are a couple of misunderstood plays in the FX market but beyond that, it is pretty much just models buying USD and a few carry currencies.

Japan is an interesting case. The BOJ continues to normalize its policy and reduce the level of accommodation (as measured by real overnight rate). If they are on track to achieve their target of 2%, the policy rate will gradually go to 1.5-2%. The question is how quickly we go there.

In macro land, AUD rates are cheap and 10s has decent carry and roll, hedging is not expensive (for US investors). Their high beta to US rates has made them a difficult proposition. Inflation is still high and the RBA is not ready to cut yet, but the cycle has turned.

EM sovereign spreads are extremely tight as well, while we are not as tight as we were during 2006-07 period when we had the biggest EM and commodities bull run, the current level does not offer good risk premium to assume the risk.

Credit spreads are pretty damn tight, but it can stay tight for a while. Not much roll in the HY index but the 307bps spread is still hard to overcome unless you have a strong case for it to widen out.

And how should we think about the curve? Will the 2s10s trade north of 300bps when the Fed is done cutting rates for the cycle? Or are we going to break our collective brains when the curve trades as flat as pancakes?

Since my first tweet on Bluesky, we have discovered the sky was the limit with 30s making a local high of 5.18% and a local low of 3.89%. We have entertained the rise of term premiums and tightening of swap spreads. I am asking again, is the sky the limit (above 5.18%) and on what basis?

What a wild week. RBA & BNM did surprise hikes. Confidence crisis again in regional banks. Fed hiked 25bps & signaled conditional pause. ECB a snoozer. Banks scrambled & regulators signaled that they would respond. Solid job reports + strong Apple results, and we ended the week on a positive note.

Is (blue) sky the limit for the 30-year bond yield or have we already seen the current cycle high?

Hello friends! This is me, the hippo from the blue bird nest.