Julian, given your view on the steepener trade, would you consider playing it through mortgage REITS at all? Or perhaps any specific higher quality books given spreads could continue widening?

Raoul, Had I not seen your two tweets screaming how artificial the Bitcoin price action was prior to the recent collapse, then I might have held my allocation to $BTC instead of selling. It was so obvious the way you laid it out, but I was frankly not paying close attention given how stable the price had become. I owe you a beer or two :) Thank you.

Julian/Raoul - after today’s Fed Powell’s speech ....does this impact your timing of Fed rate hikes, ie now quite possibly “1 and done”....for the time being ? Noticed TLT was actually down today ...hmmm.... bond market may be seeing future inflation and doesn’t like slowing down rate hikes ..? Gold/Miners also up well .... Is it possible Trump got what he wanted from Powell today, so Trump can now go into the G7 meeting, this weekend, with more aggression, not worrying so much about the Fed and stock market ? Trump can stand stronger against China now ...IMO ... Thanks ....

good read. thanks. this 'peg' might has to do something with current break even for bitcoin. - must be around that area depending on various factors. some big miners are possibly trying to get rid off as much of that stuff as possible.... https://medium.com/@sunnyday.james/estimating-the-break-even-price-for-new-bitcoin-mining-units-88e39a0f5f9a

Would be interested, in the next Insider Talks, to hear some of Raoul and Julian's top prediction for 2019. Maybe a high probability, medium probability and low (but higher than the wider market expects) probability.

Julian, During the expiration of debt ceiling resolution in 2017, huge amount of cash were released in banking system causing a relief of broad financial conditions even though the fed kept hikes. The similar event will come in March 2019. I expect this time would be different. QT will absorb the liquidity, so the relief would be shorter-lived than in 2017. But still financial conditions would be eased meaningfully during the event. Any opinions of the expiration of debt ceiling resolution in 2019?

Hi Julian, Raoul - interested to know whether the recent Jay Powell speech or release of last Fed meeting minutes have in any way changed/nuanced your individual/collective views as articulated in this piece/prior pieces. Regards

Julian, so you think we may skip yield curve inversion and head straight into steepening..? With this slowdown starting to be felt everywhere I would of thought the chance of a recession 18-24 months was increasing..?

dear Julian and Raoul, just a general observation / remark: it is my impression that macro insider is getting better and better after the initial "slow start". So well done, it is truly value adding. I did renew TT but do hope that it will improve as well, as I somehow lack conviction about the value of some content providers. Going back to macro, I will be very keen to see how the USD fares once year end has passed, on a purchasing power parity consideration, the USD appears vastly overvalued against Yen, Euro and Sterling. With such low oil prices, this must be a big boost to the Chinese current account which would soften the devaluation pressure towards 7 and line up an attractive risk/return EM trade.

Hey Julian - if you were to express the steepening trade via Eurodollar futures, which contracts would you choose? EDZ9 vs EDZ0 or EDZ9 vs EDZ1?

Raoul, amazing work on Bitcoin, great investigation! Question for both gents; what's your take on commodities, specifically soft commodities? Going into recession do we see consumption fall and prices bottom even further or is it still a favourable time to buy at these long term lows?

Thanks for another great update. I find it hard to get on board with the case for rising inflation next year. Most important is that wage demands don't increase when housing and energy are tanking together, which is unfolding right now. Also difficult when households are going to have to swap consumption for debt service as mortgages and other rates reset higher. Yes, we are at structurally low levels of unemployment, but labor market tightness has been overestimated, and the drivers of broad wage gains/demands (outside of a subset of sectors) are just not there. Have to consider a disinflationary bust scenario as well. But, the strong dollar is definitely on borrowed time, which is already being reflected in forward rates. Once the mainstream and Fed confirm what the bond market is already saying, USD will weaken and this might be positive for the inflation outlook. Julian's bear steepener is the way to go methinks, albeit for slightly different reasons.

Open question to anybody reading these comments (sorry for the ignorant question, but I'm still on a learning curve with all this stuff) - why are 10 year treasuries gaining at the moment (ie. yields falling)? I thought the steepener trade was going to lower shorter-end yields? Is the 10 year change reflecting recession fears v the shorter end being impacted by the Fed pause (and subsequent reversal)?