⛏ Liquidity Stress is Intensifying

The World’s Newest Gold Buyer Made $13 Billion Last Year
On July 8, 2014, three friends announced something called Realcoin from a Santa Monica startup office. Four months later, Brock Pierce, Reeve Collins, and Craig Sellars rebranded it as Tether. The pitch was simple: one digital token equals one US dollar, backed by actual dollars in a bank account. Nobody thought it would work. Read on »

The Dollar Destruction That Was—and Is—Coming
At yesterday’s FOMC meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell announced a 0.25% reduction, bringing total cuts since June to 1.5%. And while his statements were wrapped in the usual Fed-speak, the takeaway couldn’t be clearer—more cuts are coming. But that’s just one side of the coin. Read on »

Liquidity Stress is Intensifying
At first glance, everything seems under control: stocks are holding steady and the U.S. economy is resilient. And yet, something is going wrong in the global financial system. In recent days, the cost of very short-term cash — the SOFR (Secured Overnight Financing Rate), which measures how much it costs to borrow money overnight — has risen sharply. Read on »