Consumers pulling in the reins (and shunning TLT as well)
November 19, 2025
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–Today’s news includes FOMC minutes, followed by NVDA. Given that many Fed officials have recently articulated their outlooks, the minutes probably aren’t important. FFF6 is closely bouncing around either side of 50/50 for a cut/no cut at next month’s FOMC. FFF6 settled 9625.5 or 3.745% vs current EFFR of 3.88 or 9612.
–I don’t watch retail stocks closely, but I would note that TGT reports this morning. Stock is down 35% ytd and is near the year’s low. Yesterday COST was down 1.9% at 895; it’s also near the year’s low of 890, set in March. HD was slammed 6% yesterday on its report. WMT tomorrow morning.
–One other tangential note, the Dutch gov’t taco’ed and relinquished control of Nexperia back to China. “We see this as a show of goodwill” said the Dutch econ minister. More like the realization that expropriation of a company which makes chips vital to the auto industry is just stupid. “An important goal in the discussions with the Chinese authorities is the resumption of exports from China in order to alleviate the disruption to value chains. At the time of writing, there is cautious optimism following a number of reports that Nexperia chips are being delivered again,” Karremans wrote… (CNBC)
–In the US stocks remain cautiously vulnerable in front of NVDA. Numerous shrill reports that bitcoin had fallen below 90k appear to have brought in some bottom-pickers. The US curve steepened. The 2y yield fell 3 bps to 3.578% while 30s were up slightly at 4.744%. New recent highs in 2/10 at 54.3 and 5/30 at 105.0, but it has pretty much been a sideways slog in curve trades for the past couple of months. Attached chart shows POTENTIAL head and shoulders formation in TLT and the 30-yr yield, equally obvious on the Ultra-bond future continuous chart (WN). I’ve noted that Japan’s longer dated yields continue to make new highs; 20y JGB now 2.82% from 2.57 at the end of October. If US bonds decisively break the necklines, then 4.98 to 5% is a reasonable target on US 30’s.
