Morning Brief – Balance Sheet Management

BS Management

This time BS as in Balance Sheet and the case in point is the US Federal Reserve. At the beginning of 2022 the Fed’s balance sheet stood at an all time high of USD 9 Trillion. As of now it is USD 7.9 Trillion. That is because the Fed in addition to managing down a robust economy through all those interest rate rises, has been deploying “quantitive tightening” or the mopping up liquidity after the largest “quantitive easing” operation in history following the pandemic. It is expected that the BS will reduce further over the next year to USD 7.2 Trillion by the end of 2024, but then that QT will come to a stop as the US economy stutters.

EUR/USD 1.0565.

Japan

A few short month ago the sage market advice was that USD/JPY would track towards 120 as the Bank of Japan through a mixture of intervention and policy adjustment(radical change) would “normalize” the abnormal nature of the long running monetary policy that has seen the Japanese policy maker defying calls for higher interest rates but the economy equally not responding particularly to ultra low interest rates. And the JPY has suffered. Now even diehard JPY fans are concluding that things are not going to change much for a very long time and that the upcoming Bank of Japan meeting will not alter that scenario.

USD/JPY 149.60

Size Does Matter

In this instance the problem was that a Sikh man named Singh who had been summoned for jury duty at a Birmingham Court. Dressed traditionally complete with kirpan or sword, he was requested to leave the kirpan with security for collection after the court session.  He complained that he felt both humiliated and embarrassed. The rule states that a 15cm or 6 inch  kirpan may be worn in court as long as the blade is no more than 12cm or 5 inches. Mr Singh claimed that his kirpan fully complied with those measurements, but the security team were having none of it. The Ministry of Justice has apologised unreservedly to Mr Singh for the distress caused and the security team has been reminded of the rules on the size of a permitted kirpan. Both Mr Singh and his traditional weapon are now allowed to attend court.

GBP/USD 1.2130.

All Talk

All Talk

Ex barrister and TV presenter Clive Anderson had a show 25 years ago when he would routinely rip into his guests to gain some canned audience laughter. The show was named All Talk which it was until CA insulted Mancunian falsetto singing group The Bee Gees this day in 1997 having overlooked the fact that the 3 brothers had enjoyed phenomenal success writing super hit songs for other famous singers such as Barbra Streisand. Then Clive Anderson discovered that it was a case of All Walk when The Bee Gees called time and walked off the set of the live show leaving him all alone:

I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow
But I was never told about the sorrows

And, how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go ’round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow
No one said a word about the sorrow

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go ’round?
And how can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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