Weekly Commentary: Bessent's Gambit

The Unemployment Rate actually dipped a tick to 4.1% and hasn't been lower since January 2025. US manufacturing activity expanded in July at the fastest pace in more than four years as demand remained strong, production surged and firms added workers. 10-year Treasury bond yields dipped a measly three bps (30-yr 2.5bps) on the surprising job losses - closing the week at 4.65% (down 9bps for the week). The U.S. and Japanese governments have acted together to try to prop up the value of the yen on global currency markets.

Let's start with weak July non-farm payrolls. For now, I'll continue to downplay weak payroll data (loss of 23k vs. expectations of 80k gain). The Unemployment Rate actually dipped a tick to 4.1% and hasn't been lower since January 2025.

I'm at about 30 years persevering as a “professional bear.” My lucky break came in late-1989, when I was hired by Gordon Ringoen to be the trader for his short-biased hedge fund in San Francisco. Working as a short-side trader, analyst and portfolio manager during the great nineties bull market – for one of the most brilliant individuals I’ve met – was an exciting, demanding and, in the end, a grueling and absolutely invaluable learning experience. Later in the nineties, I had stints at Fleckenstein Capital and East Shore Partners. In January 1999, I began my 16 year run with PrudentBear (that concluded at the end of 2014), working as strategist and portfolio manager with David Tice in Dallas until the bear funds were sold in December 2008. In the early-nineties, I became an impassioned reader of The Richebacher Letter. The great Dr. Richebacher opened my eyes to Austrian economics and solidified my lifetime passion for economics and macro analysis. I had the good fortune to assist Dr. Richebacher with his publication from 1996 through 2001. Prior to my work in investments, I worked as a treasury analyst at Toyota’s U.S. headquarters. It was working at Toyota during the Japanese Bubble period and the 1987 stock market crash where I first recognized my love for macro analysis. Fresh out of college I worked as a Price Waterhouse CPA. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oregon (Accounting and Finance majors, 1984) and later received an MBA from Indiana University (1989). By late in the nineties, I was convinced that momentous developments were unfolding in finance, the markets and policymaking that were going unrecognized by conventional analysis and the media. I was inspired to start my blog, which became the Credit Bubble Bulletin, by the desire to shed light on these developments. I believe there is great value in contemporaneous analysis, and I’ll point to Benjamin Anderson’s brilliant writings in the “Chase Economic Bulletin” during the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression era. Ben Bernanke has referred to understanding the forces leading up to the Great Depression as the “Holy Grail of Economics.” I believe “The Grail” will instead be discovered through knowledge and understanding of the current extraordinary global Bubble period.