Fed Funds Rate

One thing I found interesting during all the taper talk this summer, was that while interest rates on the 10-year treasury rose, the Fed Funds rate stayed low (0.08% in August).  It has dropped since April when it was at 0.15%.

Fed Funds rate.

Brazilian Interest Rate

Brazilian central bank continues to take steps to tighten credit by issuing another increase in its key interest rate.  Excerpt from the Telegraph:

Like other emerging economies, Brazil is struggling with a massive outflow of capital that has dragged down the value of its local currency and increased costs for companies indebted in US dollars. 

That is specially worrying for Brazil, which was already suffering with high inflation, soft consumer demand and dwindling investor appetite as its economy struggles to return to the glory days of above 4pc growth per year. 

The central bank's monetary policy committee, or Copom, announced another half a percentage point hike to 9pc on Wdnesday in a bid to ease those inflationary fears and rebuild confidence eroded by erratic government policies. 

Consumption: Personal and Government

PCE/GDP - personal consumption as percent of GDP.

PCEDG/GDP - durable goods as percent of GDP (blue); PCND/GDP - non-durable goods as percent of GDP (red); PCESV/GDP - services as percent of GDP (green).

FGCE/GDP - federal consumption as percent of GDP (blue); SLCE/GDP - state & local consumption as percent of GDP (red).

Asset-Backed Commercial Paper

If the assets are balance-sheet items, what does this chart say about balance-sheets?

ABCOMP (asset-backed commercial paper) as a percent of COMPOUT (total commercial paper outstanding).

AutoHotKey

My life has been changed.  AutoHotKey has absolutely captivated my time and efforts over the past three months.

AutoHotKey is a Windows-OS based macro-creation program.  You can create macros that send text-strings, perform mouse and keyboard events, open and close programs, search folders and files, delete files and folders, and so much more.  You can activate these events through hotkeys, hotstrings or compile the script into an executable (.exe) file which you can then sell for your own profit.

AutoHotKey is open-source and free, and descends from AutoIt - a once open-source (now closed-source) program (but still free).  It has been a great work utility in much the same way Excel macros (and VBA) have been, for me at least.  So, I obviously have to share this with the rest of the world.

The AutoHotKey website where you may download the latest version: http://www.autohotkey.com/

The Scite4AutoHotKey editor (which I use): http://fincs.ahk4.net/scite4ahk/

About the only language I am familiar with is Visual Basice by way of VBA (and just a little bit of Java), and I have found AutoHotKey to be fairly unintimidating.  It is a command based scripting language as opposed to AutoIt which is function based.  You can create many programs which are a few lines long, a couple dozen lines long or hundreds of lines long - depending on what you need, want and have a desire to do.

Take your time with it.  The Scite4AutoHotKey editor has a lot of tools for creating hotstrings, include the scriplet tool (like the Excel macro-recorder), message box creator, GUI-creator, etc.

The AutoHotKey help file (as well as the online document list) provide a good introduction to the language.

Covered Unemployed as Percent Unemployed

As low as it has ever been.

CCSA (covered claims) divided by UNEMPLOY (total unemployed).