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Quiver Quantitative
BREAKING: Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway just filed a portfolio update.
They opened a new $4.3B position in Google, $GOOG.
Full holdings up on Quiver, link below. https://t.co/RoJTmS5xhJ
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BREAKING: Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway just filed a portfolio update.
They opened a new $4.3B position in Google, $GOOG.
Full holdings up on Quiver, link below. https://t.co/RoJTmS5xhJ
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Offshore
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App Economy Insights
Berkshire just added $GOOGL to its portfolio.
A new $4.3B position (1.6% allocation). https://t.co/vnQN1WAaQj
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Berkshire just added $GOOGL to its portfolio.
A new $4.3B position (1.6% allocation). https://t.co/vnQN1WAaQj
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Offshore
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Finding Compounders
Lecture by Costco co- founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal https://t.co/xnRlX9PK7B
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Lecture by Costco co- founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal https://t.co/xnRlX9PK7B
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Offshore
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EndGame Macro
A Move Born Out of Fog
The drop in the 10 year this morning wasn’t sparked by new inflation data or a surprise consumer report, there was no data. The government shutdown delayed everything, so traders walked into the day without the usual morning anchors. When markets have no numbers to react to, they start trading the atmosphere. And the atmosphere lately has been…
“The Fed is easing, QT is ending soon, and maybe the economy is softer than we thought.”
With no fresh information to contradict that story and with thin early trading you got a drift lower in yields from around 4.12% into the low 4.07s. It wasn’t conviction. It was speculation filling a vacuum. The front end of the curve is already adjusting to a world where QT is basically done, and some folks briefly pushed the idea that the long end might follow.
A Shift in Rate Cut Expectations
At the same time, odds of a December rate cut quietly slipped. You could see it in Fed funds futures and the prediction markets, enough to show that traders were becoming less sure the Fed would cut again this year. That shift created tension..the early morning buying in bonds was based on “maybe we still get another cut,” while the broader pricing was slowly saying, “actually, maybe we don’t.”
The key is that both things, the brief rally in the 10 year and the rise in no cut probabilities were signs of the same uncertainty. The market was trying to feel out where policy expectations really sat now that QT is ending but the economy isn’t offering clean signals.
Reality Reasserts Itself
Once the initial drift lower ran out of emotional steam, reality stepped back in. Nothing in the fundamental landscape had changed…
•Treasury is still issuing aggressively
•The TGA is hovering near $950 billion
•Bank reserves haven’t recovered
•Services inflation is easing, but slowly
•QT hasn’t formally ended yet
There was no new catalyst to keep long yields down. So the move snapped back. Dealers hedged into supply. Macro funds reset their shorts. Real money accounts waited for better levels. And yields went right back above where they started, finishing closer to 4.14%.
The Simple Read
Today wasn’t about a hidden data release or a big macro surprise. It was the market feeling around in a data vacuum, testing an idea in the morning, then discarding it when nothing supported it. The reversal wasn’t dramatic; it was the tape settling back into the reality of supply, deficits, and a Fed that may be done cutting for now.
tweet
A Move Born Out of Fog
The drop in the 10 year this morning wasn’t sparked by new inflation data or a surprise consumer report, there was no data. The government shutdown delayed everything, so traders walked into the day without the usual morning anchors. When markets have no numbers to react to, they start trading the atmosphere. And the atmosphere lately has been…
“The Fed is easing, QT is ending soon, and maybe the economy is softer than we thought.”
With no fresh information to contradict that story and with thin early trading you got a drift lower in yields from around 4.12% into the low 4.07s. It wasn’t conviction. It was speculation filling a vacuum. The front end of the curve is already adjusting to a world where QT is basically done, and some folks briefly pushed the idea that the long end might follow.
A Shift in Rate Cut Expectations
At the same time, odds of a December rate cut quietly slipped. You could see it in Fed funds futures and the prediction markets, enough to show that traders were becoming less sure the Fed would cut again this year. That shift created tension..the early morning buying in bonds was based on “maybe we still get another cut,” while the broader pricing was slowly saying, “actually, maybe we don’t.”
The key is that both things, the brief rally in the 10 year and the rise in no cut probabilities were signs of the same uncertainty. The market was trying to feel out where policy expectations really sat now that QT is ending but the economy isn’t offering clean signals.
Reality Reasserts Itself
Once the initial drift lower ran out of emotional steam, reality stepped back in. Nothing in the fundamental landscape had changed…
•Treasury is still issuing aggressively
•The TGA is hovering near $950 billion
•Bank reserves haven’t recovered
•Services inflation is easing, but slowly
•QT hasn’t formally ended yet
There was no new catalyst to keep long yields down. So the move snapped back. Dealers hedged into supply. Macro funds reset their shorts. Real money accounts waited for better levels. And yields went right back above where they started, finishing closer to 4.14%.
The Simple Read
Today wasn’t about a hidden data release or a big macro surprise. It was the market feeling around in a data vacuum, testing an idea in the morning, then discarding it when nothing supported it. The reversal wasn’t dramatic; it was the tape settling back into the reality of supply, deficits, and a Fed that may be done cutting for now.
And now 10Y yield at session high https://t.co/QvB3Fu5vTj tweet
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EndGame Macro
China’s Growth Machine Is Running on Fumes
China is still expanding, but the pace is nothing like the old days. The red GDP line keeps climbing, yet it consistently lags the 6–7% growth paths China once treated as normal. At the same time, the grey bars showing loan growth are sliding to record lows.
That combination matters. For decades, China’s model was to pump credit into construction, industry, and local governments, and GDP rises automatically. But now every extra yuan of lending buys less growth than it used to. Banks are cautious, regulators are squeezing excess risk, and the old formula is losing power.
Markets Aren’t Buying the China Rebound Story
The copper to gold ratio is basically the market’s mood ring for global growth. Copper is tied to building and manufacturing; gold is where you hide when you don’t trust the future. When this ratio sinks toward crisis era lows, the same territory as 2008, 2015, and 2020 it means investors are quietly bracing for weak demand ahead.
That’s why Chinese government bond yields stay so low even when global yields are higher. It’s not optimism. It’s the opposite: the bond market is pricing in a long stretch of slower growth.
The Consumer Never Became the Center of Gravity
The retail sales chart shows what Beijing has struggled with for years: the consumer never stepped into the starring role. Through the 2000s and early 2010s, retail growth was strong and consistent. But it gradually faded, and the post COVID spikes were just base effects not a lasting rebound.
Households are cautious. Property wealth isn’t reliable anymore, job security is weaker, and the appetite for big spending just isn’t there. The long promised rebalancing toward consumption is more slogan than reality.
A Structural Slowdown, Not a Rough Patch
The long run GDP chart pulls everything together. China’s peak growth years are firmly behind it. The 1990s and 2000s were powered by globalization, rising populations, and massive construction. After 2008, each growth cycle topped out lower than the one before. After 2015, even the lows drift downward. By the 2020s, China is mostly delivering mid single digit growth, unless a statistical quirk gives it a one time pop.
This is the trajectory of an economy running into hard constraints of demographics, debt saturation, and a political system that prioritizes control over risk taking.
My Read
All these charts are saying the same thing in different ways. China is leaving its high growth era and settling into something much more modest. Credit doesn’t lift the economy like it used to. Households aren’t spending aggressively. Markets don’t see a big rebound coming. And the long term trend line is bending lower, not stabilizing.
This is a structural shift and markets have already priced in the idea that the China of the 2020s will be smaller, slower, and more constrained than the China of the 2000s and 2010s.
tweet
China’s Growth Machine Is Running on Fumes
China is still expanding, but the pace is nothing like the old days. The red GDP line keeps climbing, yet it consistently lags the 6–7% growth paths China once treated as normal. At the same time, the grey bars showing loan growth are sliding to record lows.
That combination matters. For decades, China’s model was to pump credit into construction, industry, and local governments, and GDP rises automatically. But now every extra yuan of lending buys less growth than it used to. Banks are cautious, regulators are squeezing excess risk, and the old formula is losing power.
Markets Aren’t Buying the China Rebound Story
The copper to gold ratio is basically the market’s mood ring for global growth. Copper is tied to building and manufacturing; gold is where you hide when you don’t trust the future. When this ratio sinks toward crisis era lows, the same territory as 2008, 2015, and 2020 it means investors are quietly bracing for weak demand ahead.
That’s why Chinese government bond yields stay so low even when global yields are higher. It’s not optimism. It’s the opposite: the bond market is pricing in a long stretch of slower growth.
The Consumer Never Became the Center of Gravity
The retail sales chart shows what Beijing has struggled with for years: the consumer never stepped into the starring role. Through the 2000s and early 2010s, retail growth was strong and consistent. But it gradually faded, and the post COVID spikes were just base effects not a lasting rebound.
Households are cautious. Property wealth isn’t reliable anymore, job security is weaker, and the appetite for big spending just isn’t there. The long promised rebalancing toward consumption is more slogan than reality.
A Structural Slowdown, Not a Rough Patch
The long run GDP chart pulls everything together. China’s peak growth years are firmly behind it. The 1990s and 2000s were powered by globalization, rising populations, and massive construction. After 2008, each growth cycle topped out lower than the one before. After 2015, even the lows drift downward. By the 2020s, China is mostly delivering mid single digit growth, unless a statistical quirk gives it a one time pop.
This is the trajectory of an economy running into hard constraints of demographics, debt saturation, and a political system that prioritizes control over risk taking.
My Read
All these charts are saying the same thing in different ways. China is leaving its high growth era and settling into something much more modest. Credit doesn’t lift the economy like it used to. Households aren’t spending aggressively. Markets don’t see a big rebound coming. And the long term trend line is bending lower, not stabilizing.
This is a structural shift and markets have already priced in the idea that the China of the 2020s will be smaller, slower, and more constrained than the China of the 2000s and 2010s.
As bad as the 2010s went for China, the 2020s are shaping up to be worse. That's why Chinese bond yields are as low as they are, no faith in Xi Jinping's sci-fi future (communists can't do economics; just ask India and Gorbie). Banks are cooked over there and FAI just crashed again. tweet
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EndGame Macro
The reason the Treasury is sitting on nearly a trillion dollars in its account at the Fed is a response to how unstable the government’s financing environment has become. After more than a decade of shutdowns, near misses on the debt ceiling, and erratic appropriations, the Treasury no longer trusts the calendar or Congress to keep the government funded smoothly. A large TGA balance is their insurance policy. It gives them breathing room to roll debt, meet outlays, and ride out political shocks without immediately stressing the market or risking delayed payments. The old rule of keeping only a few billion in the account made sense in a calmer era. It doesn’t in this one.
But the part that matters for markets is what this choice does to liquidity. Every dollar the Treasury parks at the Fed is a dollar that leaves the banking system. When the TGA rises, reserves fall. When reserves fall, funding feels tighter even if the Fed isn’t actively draining anything. And right now the data shows exactly that where reserves have slid, the RRP facility has emptied out, and the TGA has climbed toward the top of its post 2020 range. In effect, the Treasury has become an unintended partner in tightening financial conditions at the exact moment the Fed is trying to wind QT down.
So while it’s true that holding this much cash means issuing more debt than strictly necessary, the alternative isn’t as simple as cutting the TGA and reducing the debt. To shrink the TGA meaningfully, the government would need smaller deficits or steadier spending patterns, neither of which exist. Until that changes, a large TGA is the cost of surviving political volatility. And the side effect for markets is even as the Fed stops shrinking its balance sheet, the Treasury’s cash hoarding keeps liquidity tighter than the headline policy stance suggests.
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The reason the Treasury is sitting on nearly a trillion dollars in its account at the Fed is a response to how unstable the government’s financing environment has become. After more than a decade of shutdowns, near misses on the debt ceiling, and erratic appropriations, the Treasury no longer trusts the calendar or Congress to keep the government funded smoothly. A large TGA balance is their insurance policy. It gives them breathing room to roll debt, meet outlays, and ride out political shocks without immediately stressing the market or risking delayed payments. The old rule of keeping only a few billion in the account made sense in a calmer era. It doesn’t in this one.
But the part that matters for markets is what this choice does to liquidity. Every dollar the Treasury parks at the Fed is a dollar that leaves the banking system. When the TGA rises, reserves fall. When reserves fall, funding feels tighter even if the Fed isn’t actively draining anything. And right now the data shows exactly that where reserves have slid, the RRP facility has emptied out, and the TGA has climbed toward the top of its post 2020 range. In effect, the Treasury has become an unintended partner in tightening financial conditions at the exact moment the Fed is trying to wind QT down.
So while it’s true that holding this much cash means issuing more debt than strictly necessary, the alternative isn’t as simple as cutting the TGA and reducing the debt. To shrink the TGA meaningfully, the government would need smaller deficits or steadier spending patterns, neither of which exist. Until that changes, a large TGA is the cost of surviving political volatility. And the side effect for markets is even as the Fed stops shrinking its balance sheet, the Treasury’s cash hoarding keeps liquidity tighter than the headline policy stance suggests.
WHY?!? The US Treasury now has $943 billion in its checking account at the Fed. We pay interest on debt in order to hold this cash. And this cash is a subtraction from M2, which makes money tighter. The Treasury could reduce our debt by going back to its old rule of only holding $5 billion in the TGA. tweet