ie: US buys 50bn of long-term OATs France contractually buys 50bn of energy/goods/etc (plus other intangibles) US current account deficit shrinks US taxpayer makes the ~200bps swap spread (minus hedging costs), so 500mm to 1bn (plus a warm & fuzzy feeling)

if buybacks exceed 4bn per operation (say, are 6bn) and are continued after this quarter, takedown would be ~43% of total 20y & 30y issuance. thats a meaningful terming-in of Treasury issuance. and yes, it’s more like QE than not.

very odd report across both the establishment and HH survey. e-pop and participation fell sharply, particularly among younger cohorts. other flows suggest a slightly soft but all around okay labor market. leisure payrolls fell when you’d expect a bump, downward revisions didn’t necessarily comport with other decent Q2 labor data. for me wage growth remaining roughly constant supports my view that the labor market hasn’t changed all that much this year. Softish, but not crashing. this all underscores the importance of the mosaic approach. individual data points are losing their reliability. inflection points will take quarters to piece together using several indicators, not one or two “preferred” measures. Kangaroo macro is dead.