''Stellar blade is a meh game. It LOOKS good but plays crap.''

The review of IGN literally praised the gameplay lol

They don't even read anymore

7 out of 10 is C

https://old.reddit.com/r/Gamingcirclejerk/comments/1cc0lgk/its_confirmed/l126np7/?context=8&sort=controversial

This train enthusiast is spamming every gcj. Post with 3/10 meme because for the last two months they prayed for the game to suck ( literally cared about it as much as kiatards) and now xir is coping hard

https://old.reddit.com/r/Gamingcirclejerk/comments/1cc0lgk/its_confirmed/l122u09/?context=8&sort=controversial

Oh vey the goyem have betrayed us yet again!

Kent state should be an annual event

just two bros playing in the rain

British Muslim Influencer ‘Ali Dawah’, who has over a million YouTube subscribers, only permits his wife to communicate with him by writing on a whiteboard pic.twitter.com/75LnZ1Ijn8

— ɖʀʊӄքǟ ӄʊռʟɛʏ 🇧🇹🇹🇩 (@kunley_drukpa) April 21, 2024

It's so infuriating to watch yt men do things like this because the world was obviously created by a woman!!

!moidmoment !atheists say it me y'all: ALLAH IS A WOMAN. ALLAH. IS. A. WOMAN. Periodt!!!

!Wolfpack I'm an Alaskan Tundra wolf

Why would I ever defund the police when they’re about to help these spoiled children face consequences for the first time in their privileged, antisemitic, $80,000 a year tuition lives? https://t.co/keQYENaEz4

— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) April 24, 2024

They gave me a cute hat, right? 😺 pic.twitter.com/fC150BIE1H

— Hosico cat (@Hosico_cat) April 24, 2024

Stellar Blade embargo is up so I can finally show you the "Hard R Shop" graffiti lmao wonder how long this'll take to get patched out. pic.twitter.com/e7xv2aoxGz

— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) April 24, 2024

They patched it out within hours

https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1783178433868279824

End of post

Since the advent of modern financial markets, bonds have always had the reputation of being conservative. The saying has been “Bonds would never make you rich.”

However, they would provide you with a moderate, steady, and dependable income.

This reputation was challenged in the 1970s and 1980s by treasuries yielding more than 10% in the wake of high inflation and the explosive growth in the high-yield market. In the decades that followed, yields drifted down in parallel with inflation, but investor excitement was maintained by a steady stream of capital gains (with the proliferation of ABS and MBS) as well as income.

However, once monetary easing hit its peak in the days following the Great Financial Crisis, high-quality bond yields fell to levels that promised very little income and at best modest capital gains, and it took a long time for yields to eventually recover to their historical averages. However, in the aftermath of the pandemic, massive government borrowing, inflation, and Fed tightening have all contributed to rising bond yields. But since over the past year, despite a winding down of pandemic effects, very steady economic growth, declining inflation, and a pulse in Fed tightening, bond volatility has persisted, with yields seeing sharp swings in both directions.

Indeed, since the Fed last raised rates on July 26th of last year, the 10-year Treasury yield has ranged from a low of 3.79% to a high of 4.98%. Statistically, this represents well above average volatility, and it raises some important questions for portfolio optimization (how to practically hedge). So it raises the question why bond volatility has risen, where it might go from here, and how investors should adapt to a world of more volatile bonds.

First, take a look at some key economic data and events for the week ahead. The most important economic numbers will be contained in Thursday's GDP report (keep an eye out for that). Business fixed investment, inventories and trade are all likely to detract from growth. However, the broad story appears to be one very modest deceleration from the 3.1% GDP growth seen over the course of last year to a 2.2-2.4%, while still running a little above the Federal Reserve's 1.8% longer-run estimate of the potential growth of the US economy.

Overall, it is expected these numbers to point to continued moderate economic expansion. Turning to the earnings season, with 14% of S&P 500 market cap reporting so far, the profit picture appears mixed, showing 70% of firms beating analysts' expectations in EPS, but only 46% beating on revenues. However, first quarter of corporate performance should be much clearer by the end of this week, since 158 of the S&P 500 companies are set to report over the next five days. Meta, ThermoFischer, IBM, AT&T and Boeing are set to release theirs today. Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Merck, Intel and Comcast set for tomorrow and Exxon, Chevron and Abbvie due on Friday. (Find your portfolio holdings date here https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/earnings , can't list them all 😴😴😴)

Investors will also be very interested in the translation of earlier CPI data for March into the Fed's preferred consumption deflation measures due out on Friday. Markets in general are pricing in that both the headline and core consumption deflation measures rose by 0.3% month to month in March, with year-over-year gains rising by 0.1% to 2.6% at the headline level and falling by 0.1% to 2.7% at the core level, that core inflation pressures are still easing, but at a glacially slow pace.

Just as financial commentators routinely say that we live in uncertain times, Michael Burry routinely says another recession is coming and Disney often claims the next Marvel movie is the best one yet, markets often claim that market volatility is unusually high. However, when it comes to the US bond market today, this is actually true. Looking at the Bloomberg aggregate bond index from January 2002 to June 2022, the average monthly return was 0.3%, with the standard deviation measured over a 24-month lag of 0.9%. That is to say, roughly two-thirds of the time, the monthly return was within a range of 0.6% to plus 1.2%. However, from July 2022 to March 2024, the standard deviation of monthly returns has actually fricking been 2.0%. A crazy amount for a piece of paper which basically does nothing but guarantee a coupon and a maturity payout.

In examining the causes of this volatility, it's easiest to start with what isn't causing it.

First, it's not due to increased volatility in economic growth. Over the past two years, the macroeconomic outlook has, if anything, become steadier. The unemployment rate has now been in a narrow band between 3.4% and 4.0% (literally all of rdrama.net) for 28 straight months, while real GDP growth appears to have settled into a steady, if somewhat strong, path.

Nor is it due to increased volatility in financial markets in general. This can be seen by the fact that equity market volatility has not risen nearly as much. Between January 2002 and June 2022, the standard deviation of bond market returns measured over a 24-month lag was just 27% of that of the equity market, as measured by the S&P 500 total return index. From July 2022 to March 2024, that ratio has been 37%.

Finally, and most interestingly, it's not due to greater volatility in inflation expectations.”

Measured on a monthly frequency, this expectation has stayed in a narrow band between 2.18% and 2.41% since September 2022. In fact, the standard deviation of inflation expectations measured in this manner has been almost 20% lower since July 2022 than in the prior 17.5 years. Think about it, not since the Invasion of Iraq and the global oil supply shitshow, has inflation expectations been so low.

When you look at more recently at data, CPI's are not doing much anymore. They have kind of bottomed. You being r-slurred, can argue that goods disinflation, which had been very powerful was the main driver of this disinflation trend. Well, no. That is over. Goods disinflation is arguably behind us now. And in some segments, you are seeing goods prices starting to rise again. The monthly core CPI was boosted by rents. Motor vehicle insurance was another driver, surging 2.6%. That was the largest rise since July 2020 and followed a 0.9% gain in February. There were also increases in the prices of apparel and personal care. But prices for used cars and trucks, recreation and new vehicles fell. Make of that data what you will. If you can match that to your portfolio company's earnings and cash out on expiring options, congratulations, you have just made your money like the big boy bucks in The Street.

But obviously, energy is still a question mark. And with what's going on in the Middle East and the most recent moves in rice, cocoa, oil, one can wonder to what extent there might be some pickup in energy inflation and consequently commodity inflation. And finally, and most importantly, obviously, services inflation is very resilient.

This is especially problematic in the US. US isn't China where you can just manufacture bullshit. Everyone knows that services inflation is very sensitive to the job market, to the resilience of the economy, to wages. And on this front, obviously, the job market across both sides of the Atlantic is very strong.

So, you know that the economists at the BLS and Fed think we have reached kind of a plateau.

But then, what is causing higher volatility in bonds, you ask incredulously?

First, Occam's Gillette. That this may be due in part to the huge volume of government debt that needs to be financed today. 20 years ago, treasury debt in the hands of the public was $4.2 trillion or 36% of GDP. Ten years ago, it was $12.6 trillion or 74% of GDP. By the end of last month, it was $27.5 trillion or 99% of GDP. It's quite possible that this extraordinary level of debt is straining global capital markets in a way that just wasn't the case 10 or 20 years ago, leading to more volatility.

This effect may be further amplified by quantitative tightening, which is having the effect of transferring treasury ownership from price insensitive buyers such as the Federal Reserve to much more price sensitive private sector actors. Moreover, this effect could be further increased by the general decline in dealer balance sheets in response to regulation, even as the overall size of the global bond market has increased. Second, higher short-term rates may be contributing to higher bond volatility.

With a normal upward-sloping yield curve, it's easy to assign investors to one of two well-defined camps. Those willing to accept some risk and return for better yields and potential capital gains would invest in long-term bonds, while those willing to sacrifice return for safety would stay at the short end of the curve. However, with overnight rates well above 5% and long rates significantly lower, many long-term investors may be tempted to tactically switch in and out of the short end of the market, adding volatility to bonds. Basically instead of hedging equities with bonds and credit with rates, they are speculating with your pension funds and having fun. (Let them have fun, bigot 🤬🤬!!).

Finally, and most hilariously, today's volatile bond market may reflect hypersensitivity of the Fed. Prior to the most recent inflation surge, Fed officials appeared to be relatively unfazed by small overshoots and undershoots on inflation. However, today we appear to be in an era of zero inflation tolerance on the part of the Fed. Consequently, a very slight overshoot in the March CPI numbers induced an immediate and violent reaction to the bond market, as futures markets almost overnight went from pricing in three full rate cuts in 2024 to barely pricing in two. Even if the inflation environment is relatively steady, any sharp change in expected Fed policy could add to bond market volatility.

Think about it for a second. We have reached metamarkets now. The market's expectations of inflation are tempered but since the Fed's inflation expectations haven't, so the markets are literally pricing in a quasi inflation derivative, ie the expectation of the fed's expectation of the inflation. This is your portfolio manager, Chris Nolan, and he's here to give you a lesson on markets called Inception. 😴😴😴

Then that brings us to the next question, that if, let's say, the Fed waits, is there a risk that given how strong the US economy has been, that there is a chance that inflation might actually slowly creep up instead of going down as it has done, let's say, last year? This is really the key risk here. And when you look back to, for instance, the 1970s, this is really what happened. (Already covered in previous effortpost).

But maybe the truth is, most likely, we have a very different situation. Most likely, the cyclical part of inflation is probably gone now. It has all but disappeared. And in many ways, the western countries are now left with the structural part of this inflation. Structural part, which is clearly the consequence of very long term factors on the economy, demographics, deglobalization, international wars etc. I am not a Political Economist, so I'll just say vote for Biden. Or for Trump. Or just have fun.❤️❤️❤️

Clearly, there's no evidence that Washington is going to reign in fiscal deficits or the regulators will act aggressively to deepen liquidity in treasury markets. While many still expect the Federal Reserve to cut rates later this year (pipe dreams), yield curve inversion could persist for a further year or more.

Nor is there any sign that an inflation-scarred Federal Reserve is going to moderate their reaction to inflation news going forward.

In this supermeta scenario, bond market volatility is here to stay at least for a while, and as a pesky investor you may want to consider if your bond allocations are appropriate for the overall balance of their portfolios. In other words, fricking sell your current bonds and load up on the next offerings because I don't see rate cuts soon.

Sauce:

https://www.bea.gov

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ppi.nr0.htm

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_bill_rates&field_tdr_date_value=2024

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/BeigeBook_20240417.pdf

And finally,

Your mum's shrieks when I was doing her

!r-slurs !math

@Proud_Mossad_Asset please effortpost sir before it's too old