Month: July 2021

With global container shipping rates hitting never before seen levels amid a historic global scramble to secure good and inventory…

… suppliers to Walmart, Target, Amazon.com and other major retailers told Reuters they are placing holiday orders for Chinese-made merchandise weeks much earlier this year, as a global shipping backlog threatens to leave many gift buyers empty-handed this Christmas shopping season.  

Reuters surveyed nearly a dozen suppliers and retailers of everything from toys to computer equipment in the United States and Europe. All expect weeks-long delays in holiday inventory due to shipping bottlenecks, including a global container shortage and the recent COVID-related closure of the southern Chinese port of Yantian, which serves manufacturers near Shenzhen.

The risk for retailers is a rash of out-of-stock items just as shoppers are ready to open their wallets to splurge on toys, clothing and other merchandise.

“It’s going to be a major, major mess,” said Isaac Larian, chief executive of Los Angeles-based MGA Entertainment Inc, which sells LOL Surprise, Bratz, Little Tikes and other toy brands to Amazon, Walmart and Target. His company has toys stuck in hundreds of containers at the Yantian port. If he can’t get enough inventory for his retail clients, “it’s going to hurt the Christmas sales big time,” Larian said.

The shipping logjams are due to more than just the backlog in Yantian, which is considered Amazon’s No. 1 Chinese seaport – accounting for 32.4% of shipments handled by the e-commerce company in the three months to May 31, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s trade data firm Panjiva.

While Yantian port reopened on June 24, a shortage of containers was still constraining full activity, globally cargo ships are overbooked, containers are stranded in the wrong places, and ports are congested. As a result, products are piling up on factory floors, in warehouse parking lots, on seaport docks and at rail yards – threatening more backups than last year’s holiday “shipageddon,” when many items arrived after Christmas.

Retailers generally are selling goods as fast as they can bring them in, said Jason Miller, associate professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business.

“Their sales are so high right now that they’re unable to build inventory levels up substantially,” said Miller.

If that torrid clip continues, retailers would have to add about $65.1 billion in inventories to be in the same pre-holiday inventory-to-sales position they were in 2019, he said.

Andy Bond, chief executive of Pepco Group, which owns British discount retailer Poundland, told Reuters separately, “it’s definitely a day-to-day challenge and a headache that we are facing.”

Clothing sellers are looking at air freight as an option – including PVH Corp, which owns the Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein brands.

Christmas-themed inventory “might be here for Thanksgiving weekend – and it might not be,” said Balsam Hill CEO Mac Harman, who sells high-end artificial Christmas trees and other holiday décor. Some of his orders from China may not arrive in time for his July sales kickoff – or even by Christmas, he said.

“We’re hundreds of containers behind where we should be at this point,” he said, with at least 10% fewer products in stock.

Michael Shah, CEO of British-based Easy Equipment, which supplies catering equipment across the United Kingdom, is racing to bring goods in early after already contending with containers held up in China.

“We are already starting to order more stock now knowing that by September-October, we have to be prepared,” Shah said. “It gets busy in the run-up to Christmas with the restaurant trade, and we are having to bite the bullet and try and rush in stock.”

Carly McGinnis, head of production, sales and logistics at Exploding Kittens, wants to make sure major retailers such as Walmart and Target don’t run out of its games. The Los Angeles-based company is making more games this year and began shipping holiday orders in March, about four months earlier than in 2020.

She also gives Walmart and Target the option to import some of their own orders. Because the two retailers are among the top U.S. importers of containerized goods, they may get priority access to containers and space on cargo ships.

“I’ve told our investors, and my internal team, something will be out of stock – there will be an issue. I don’t know when and I don’t know what it will be, but it’s certainly going to happen,” McGinnis said.

Meanwhile, Bernie Thompson, founder of Washington-based Plugable Technologies, said he has abandoned hope for a holiday restock of laptop docking stations and some other computer equipment he sells via Amazon and other retailers. That’s because it can take more than 12 months to get some of his top-selling products, which rely on hard-to-find computer chips.

A respondent in today’s ISM Manufacturing survey confirmed as much, saying that “electronic components by far the biggest challenge, with lead times going from 16 weeks to 52-plus weeks.” This means that an order today will arrive some time in the summer of 2022.

“It’s too late for Christmas,” said Thompson pointing out the obvious.

Michael Burry caused a stir on twitter (and subsequently in the financial press) late last month when he tweeted (and quickly deleted) that he expected “the mother of all crashes” would soon “spell doom” for crypto.

While he’s gone quiet again on Twitter, on Thursday, Barron’s published an interview with the infamous Scion Asset Management founder (whose story was featured in “the Big Short”) where Burry shared his skepticism of the “meme stock” craze, including GameStop, a company whose shares he correctly identified as undervalued back in 2019 (though he sold his position shortly after the price started trending higher in late 2020, missing out on the late-January surge in the company’s shares).

Burry told Barron’s he sees “shades of 1999 and 2007” in the meme stock world, and worries they could end up hurting regular investors. However, he can’t say exactly when meme stocks will crash – he just knows they will.

“I don’t know when meme stocks such as this will crash, but we probably do not have to wait too long, as I believe the retail crowd is fully invested in this theme, and Wall Street has jumped on the coattails,” Burry told Barron’s via email. “We’re running out of new money available to jump on the bandwagon.”

Ultimately, retail traders might find themselves co-opted by institutions who have far more resources to spark “gamma squeezes” (when option buying forces dealers to hedge buy either buying or selling the underlying) that can manipulate the directionality of meme stocks. We’ve written (via SpotGamma) about the “gamma squeeze” dynamic playing out in shares of AMC.

“Momentum, social media are now part of the strategy for Wall Street, and they are in a better position than retail to participate, sniff out and start gamma squeezes in the options market,” Burry added, the latter part referring to heightened demand for shares driven by market makers rushing to hedge call options they sold—a phenomenon that likely juiced meme stock trading.

As we mentioned above, not only did Burry correctly predict that GameStop’s shares were undervalued, but Burry’s analysis formed the basis of the bull case articulated by Keith Gill, aka “RoaringKitty” and “DeepF*ckingValue” credited with sparking the GameStop phenomenon on with his posts on Wall Street Bets.

Burry even warned about the risks posed by aggressive short-sellers (even back then GME was one of the most heavily shorted stocks in the US market).

All things considered, we suspect Burry was pretty happy with the results of his GameStop call based on a rubric he shared with Barron’s.

“For me though, if I get within years on a thesis coming true, I’m happy,” he says. “Most people are focused on days, weeks or months.”

If nothing else, Burry managed to repeat the main accomplishment from his legendary housing-bubble call: he correctly ascertained that the general market sentiment surrounding GameStop was totally wrong.

By John Gallagher of FreightWaves

The number of U.S. truck drivers sidelined due to substance abuse violations has surpassed 60,000 and continues to climb by roughly 2,000-3,000 per month, according to federal data. The latest monthly report by the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration since January 2020, revealed that 60,299 CDL holders have a drug or alcohol violation recorded in the clearinghouse as of June 1, up from 57,510 as of May 1 and up from 18,860 recorded in the clearinghouse as of May 1, 2020.

Drivers with at least one substance abuse violation are barred from operating a commercial truck until they complete a return-to-duty process, which includes providing a negative follow-up test result. The percentage of drivers who are completing the RTD process has steadily increased over the past year, however, from 5.2% as of May 1, 2020, to 22.1% as of May 1, 2021.

Marijuana consistently tops the list of substances identified in positive drug tests, far outpacing cocaine and methamphetamine, the second- and third-highest drug violations, respectively, among CDL holders.

The number of violations now recorded in the clearinghouse stands out for another reason: It’s coincidentally just a few hundred shy of an estimated number of drivers needed to fill a shortfall of commercial drivers to keep pace with freight demand.

“According to a recent estimate, the trucking industry needs an additional 60,800 truck drivers immediately — a deficit that is expected to grow to more than 160,000 by 2028,” testified American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear at a Capitol Hill hearing on freight mobility in May.

“In fact, when anticipated driver retirement numbers are combined with the expected growth in capacity, the trucking industry will need to hire roughly 1.1 million new drivers over the next decade, or an average of nearly 110,000 per year.”

Scopelitis Consulting Co-Director Sean Garney pointed out that the growing number of prohibited drivers is not a bad thing from a safety standpoint.

“The database is doing what it’s supposed to do, which is identify those who should not be driving,” Garney told FreightWaves. “Losing drivers due to positive drug tests may not necessarily be a good thing for truck capacity, but I think what many others in this industry also care about is safety.”

Lordstown Motors were briefly halted after cratering on news that the Department of Justice is probing the company, according to Dow Jones. Shares tanked around 1130 EST on the news and were halted.

The probe shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who have been following the Lordstown saga. Recall, the company was caught lying about its “binding” orders (again) just hours after its CEO Steve Burns resigned after allegations of same in mid-June.

In mid-June Lordstown was forced to correct itself in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission about statements its President made the day prior. Tucked into a Form 8-K that looked as though it was just to accompany the announcement of the hiring of a new VP of Global Commercial Operations, the company admitted statements its President made earlier in the week (and that boosted the stock) were inaccurate:

To clarify recent remarks by company executives at the Automotive Press Association online media event on June 15, although these vehicle purchase agreements provide us with a significant indicator of demand for the Endurance, these agreements do not represent binding purchase orders or other firm purchase commitments. As previously disclosed in our Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2020, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 8, 2021, to date, we have engaged in limited marketing activities and we have no binding purchase orders or commitments from customers.

Recall, just one day prior to the comments, Lordstown’s CEO Steve Burns had resigned, along with the company’s CFO, following the results of an internal investigation catalyzed by allegations by short seller Hindenburg Research back in May.

In a PR called “Lordstown Motors Announces Leadership Transition” that same week, the company said the executive shuffle was due to a “transition from the R&D and early production phase to the commercial production phase of its business.” But in a separate PR called “Lordstown Motors Reports Results Of Special Committee Investigation Of Hindenburg Research Report”, the company released the findings of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP,  who was tasked with looking in Hindenburg’s allegations.

“The Special Committee’s investigation concluded that the Hindenburg Report is, in significant respects, false and misleading,” the PR reads, before admitting: “The investigation did, however, identify issues regarding the accuracy of certain statements regarding the Company’s pre-orders,” the PR reads. 

“Lordstown Motors made periodic disclosures regarding pre-orders which were, in certain respects, inaccurate,” the PR read.

First, the company admitted that some of its pre-orders were to “influencers”.

“Lordstown Motors has stated on several occasions that its pre-orders were from, or “primarily” from commercial fleets. In fact, many pre-orders were obtained from (i) fleet management companies or other end users that indicated interest in purchasing Endurance trucks, similar to commercial fleets, and (ii) so-called “influencers” or other potential strategic partners that committed to attempt to secure pre-orders from other entities, but did not intend to purchase Endurance trucks directly.

And also stated that “One entity that provided a large number of pre-orders does not appear to have the resources to complete large purchases of trucks. Other entities provided commitments that appear too vague or infirm to be appropriately included in the total number of pre-orders disclosed.”

Recall, Lordstown was the target of short seller Hindenburg Research back in May of this year, who released a report called “The Lordstown Motors Mirage: Fake Orders, Undisclosed Production Hurdles, And A Prototype Inferno”.

In late April, President Biden announced it was time “to end the forever war” in Afghanistan, saying the US has accomplished its mission. We noted in May that US troops were expected to be out of the Middle Eastern country by early to mid-July, well before the Sept. 11 deadline set by Biden. New developments on Friday indicate that all US forces have been removed from a major airbase. 

“All American soldiers and members of NATO forces have left the Bagram airbase,” a senior US security official on condition of anonymity told Reuters. 

Two decades since US troops landed at Bagram, the base was a major command and logistical base for the entire operation in Afghanistan. The base is located about an hour and 20-minute drive north of Kabul. 

In the coming days, additional troops stationed in Kabul will be withdrawn. The departure marks the longest American war in history, and the costs include 2,312 American lives and a $2.26 trillion bill to US taxpayers. 

The US officially handed over Bagram to the Afghan military on Friday, Rohullah Ahamadzai, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, told CNN.

A Taliban spokesman praised the US for removing its forces from the base and said this is a “positive step.”

“The presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan was a reason for continuation of fighting in the country,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahid told CNN Friday. “If foreign forces leave Afghanistan, Afghans can decide future issues among themselves. We will step forward for the security of the country and our hope for the peace would increase and inshallah we will have development.”

For years the base was also home to a secret CIA black site detention center for terrorist suspects that former President Obama acknowledged. 

The top U.S.commander in Afghanistan, defense official General Austin Miller, said the US “still retains all the capabilities and authorities to protect the forces” stationed in Kabul. 

Fox News reports 650 US troops will remain in Afghanistan indefinitely, based mainly at the US embassy. There’s a possibility that 300 troops may stay at the base in Kabul for additional security measures. 

From now on, if the US wants to launch military operations, such as reconnaissance or air-support, it must do it through Qatar and or other Middle Eastern Allies, all of which diminish the reaction response time. 

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

In Part-2 of “Capitalism” does not equal “Corporatism,” we delve into why bailouts support corporatism and how to fix the system.

(Read Part 1 Here – The Repeal Of Glass-Steagall & Stock Buybacks)

Capitalism Is Darwinian

Capitalism, if allowed to operate, is a “Darwinian System.” As with Darwin’s theory of evolution, corporate evolution has the same essential components as biological evolution: competition, adaptation, variation, overproduction, and speciation. In other words, as an economic system, companies either adapt, evolve, and survive or become extinct. 

In 2008, the Government and Federal Reserve began a process of “bailing” out companies that should have been allowed to go “bankrupt.” Instead, a decision got made to stop “capitalism” from proceeding with its “Darwinian” process. It all began with the initial bailout of Bear Stearns.

To date, the Federal Reserve, and the Government, have pumped more than $43 Trillion into the economy to keep it “afloat.”

I say “afloat” rather than “growing” because, since 2008, the total cumulative growth of the economy is just $3.5 trillion. In other words, for each dollar of economic growth since 2008, it required $12 of monetary stimulus. Such sounds okay until you realize it came solely from debt issuance.

Failure To Allow Capitalism To Operate

We need that bit of history to understand why “bailouts are ruining capitalism.” 

“Modern society looks increasingly to government for protection from major crises. Whether recessions, public-health disasters or, as today, a painful combination of both. Such rescues have their place. Few would deny that the Covid-19 pandemic called for dramatic intervention. But there is a downside to this reflex to intervene, which has become more automatic over the past four decades. Our growing intolerance for economic risk and loss is undermining the natural resilience of capitalism and now threatens its very survival.” – Ruchir Sharma

Sharma is correct.

Such was a point I recently discussed in “Recessions Are A Good Thing.” To wit:

“Just as poor forest management leads to more wildfires, not allowing ‘creative destruction’ to occur in the economy leads to a financial system that is more prone to crises.

Given the structural fragility of the global economic and financial system, policymakers remain trapped in the process of trying to prevent recessions from occurring due to the extreme debt levels. Unfortunately, such one-sided thinking ultimately leads to skewed preferences and policymaking.

As such, the ‘boom and bust’ cycles will continue to occur more frequently at the cost of increasing debt, more money printing, and increasing financial market instability.”

The Fed’s foray into “policy flexibility” did extend the business cycle. However, those extensions led to higher structural budget deficits. The cancerous byproduct of increased private and public debt, artificially low interest rates, negative real yields, and inflated financial asset valuations is problematic.

Specifically to Sharma’s point:

“However, these policies have all but failed to this point. From ‘cash for clunkers’  to  ‘Quantitative Easing,’ economic prosperity worsened. Pulling forward future consumption, or inflating asset markets, exacerbated an artificial wealth effect. Such led to decreased savings rather than productive investments.”

The Fed’s “Moral Hazard”

“This is a dangerous form of denial. A growing body of research shows that constant government stimulus has been a major contributor to many of modern capitalism’s most glaring ills. Easy money fuels the rise of giant firms and, along with crisis bailouts, keeps alive heavily indebted “zombie” firms at the expense of startups, which typically drive innovation. All of this leads to low productivity—the prime contributor to the slowdown in economic growth and a shrinking of the pie for everyone.” – Sharma

By not allowing “recessions” to perform their natural “Darwinian” function of “weeding out the weak,” to Sharma’s point:

“Zombies’ are firms whose debt servicing costs are higher than their profits but are kept alive by relentless borrowing. 

Such is a macroeconomic problem. Zombie firms are less productive, and their existence lowers investment in, and employment at, more productive firms. In short, a side effect of central banks keeping rates low for a long time is it keeps unproductive firms alive. Ultimately, that lowers the long-run growth rate of the economy.” – Axios

If capitalism were allowed to function, the weak players would fail. Stronger market players would acquire failed company assets. Bond-holders would receive some compensation for their debt holdings. Shareholders, the ones who accepted the most risk, would get wiped out.

Furthermore, assuming capitalism was allowed to function, investors would require appropriate compensation for the risk when loaning money to companies. As such, credit-related investors would get compensated for their risk rather than the current state of abnormally low yields for junk-rated debt.

Why is this currently the case? It is the direct result of the Fed’s creation of “moral hazard.” The definition of which is:

“A lack of incentive to guard against risk as investors believe the Fed is protecting them from the consequences of it.”

Why Wealth Inequality Is A Good Thing

Just recently, Aaron Back accidentally made a case for why we should foster “capitalism” over “socialism.” 

“The introduction of capitalist reforms to Communist China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but it had a drawback: rising income inequality.”

Aaron’s rush to jump on the “inequality bandwagon” exposed the benefits of capitalism. Let’s break down his statement:

1. The introduction of capitalism lifts millions out of poverty. (This is a good thing)

2. Yes, capitalism created inequality as those that took advantage of capitalism prospered versus those that did not. (How capitalism works)

3. If capitalism helped lift millions out of poverty, such suggests everyone was previously poor under communism. 

Point 3 is the most important.

“Capitalism gets its power—and has created the greatest increase in social welfare in history—from embracing human ingenuity and the positive forces of innovation, open markets and competition. Perhaps the greatest strength of free markets is their ability to nimbly adjust to new ideas and situations and find the most efficient system. Markets are always looking to do things better. We can apply that same logic to capitalism itself to improve capitalism further so that it can provide even greater social welfare.” – Daniel LaCalle

Let me clarify something for you.

The ‘American Dream’ isn’t going into debt to buy a home. The ‘American Dream’ is the ability for ANY person, regardless of race, religion, or means, to achieve success, and in many cases great success, through hard work, dedication, determination, and sacrifice.

Capitalism Is The Worst, Except For All The Rest

One thing is for sure. Life isn’t fair.

“The rich have everything, and all I have is a mountain of student debt and a crappy job.”

Capitalism isn’t perfect, as Howard Marks recently noted:

“Capitalism is an imperfect economic system, because differential performance in the pursuit of economic success – as well as luck – results in there being (a) some people who are less successful as well as some who are more and (b) a few who are glaringly successful.

I’m 100% convinced that the capitalist system has produced the most aggregate gains for our society, exceptional overall progress, and a better life for most. 

In the same way, I’m convinced that capitalism is the worst economic system . . . except for all the rest.”

Here is a hard truth for you.

“Capitalism is the only system that will provide you the ability to achieve unbridled success.”

Yes, the Government can pay for anything you want. The problem is that it requires those who are succeeding to pay for it.

Think about it.

Do you want to work hard, sacrifice, and take on an exceeding amount of risk to achieve success, only to pay for those who don’t?

Such is why socialism always fails.

“The greater good can only be achieved by making the good greater.” – Daniel LaCalle

Fixing What’s Broken

Is “capitalism” broken? No.

The problem is continuous interventions to halt the “Darwinian” function of “capitalism.” That brutal process must function; otherwise, it leads to “corporatism.”

While there is much complaining about “wealth inequality,” there is little “demand” to change it.

For example, if we were concerned about the monopolistic powers of companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google – we would stop using them. Without customers, these companies cease to exist.

However, we won’t do that because we want to conveniently complain about the injustices of the world on those platforms.

If we were upset about the executive compensation, we would stop buying Apple products. But if we did that, how on earth would we access Twitter and Facebook to complain about the inequalities in the world.

Of course, we could also stop making executives rich. In that case, we only have to stop investing in the financial markets, and more importantly, demanding immediate access to information via our computers and social media.

The demand for information immediacy, and the decimalization of Wall Street, have pushed companies to use proforma accounting, gimmicks, and share buybacks to beat Wall Street estimates. But let me ask you, is it essential that a company beats their earnings by a single penny? Does such change the long-term valuation of the investment?

If you wanted to fix “capitalism,” you have the power to do so.

The problem is that you are unwilling to make the sacrifice needed to force a change.

Instead, you want the Government to fix the problem for you.

Of course, that is how “socialism” and “communism” came to be in the first place.

The current state of “capitalism” may seem broken, but every other form of an economic system leads to worse long-term outcomes for the average American.

VIX tumbled to a 14 handle this morning after the “goldilocks” jobs data as stocks spiked…

And, despite increasing evidence of a very strong “inflation pipeline,” Treasury yields continue to slide and we the power “bull-flattening” of the past month accelerates.

But, as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott points out in a brief note today, the rapid accumulating “short vol” positioning out there (and the subsequent col compression) has significant implications on very significant risk-sizing across the entire markiet universe.

Pretty remarkable to see extension of the bull-flattening in bonds (WN earlier making new recovering highs and 5s30s cash testing 9 month lows, although steeping a bit post data) despite the following observations…which to me yet-again shows that the market psyche remains absolutely fixated on the growth-slowing implications of “financial conditions” risk from strong data = “pulling forward” timing of central bank tightening, and / or more aggressive approach (hikes faster OR hikes more in same window).

The market seemingly being concerned about an upside surprise into today’s NFP which then realized into a “beat” (following the Claims print yday…although the “real” acceleration in the “return to workforce” dynamic of the unemployment benefits run-off should come in the next 3 monthly reports), simply because it hastens the tapering timeline (see comments from Fed’s Waller yday), into what is already a likely accelerated hiking timeline.

More evidence of inflation overshoot earlier out of Europe, where EZ PPI YoY surged to a record high of 9.6% in May (back just 6 months prior, Dec EZ PPI was -1.1% YoY)—noting specifically energy prices jumping to 25.1% in May and prices for intermediate goods also v strong +9.2%; note, this comes as EZ Manu PMIs suggest more input cost increases due to supply-side constraints, while data also shows output prices rising higher too as corporates are forced to pass through higher costs.

Turning to US Equities Vol, we have spoken on repeat for a long-while on the absolute defenestration of Vols which initially spiked following the initial “Fed tightening tantrum” which followed the release of the shock +++ April Core CPI data data, as “inflation scare” became a thing due to Fed “pull forward” concerns—thereafter, those “rich vols” were sold into submission from both systematic- and discretionary- investors full-throttle.

SPX 1m realized vol is now 8.9 (7.7%ile), while even more eye-watering is 3m SPX realized at 10.9—a remarkable 0.4%ile rank—as such, we estimate that the Vol Control universe has accumulated +$74.5B of fresh US Equities exposure over the following 3m, and +$10.5B over the past 2d alone (90.2%ile).

VIX ETN Net Vega has been a one-way purge since early 2021, as the aggregate “long” position which peaked post COVID shock in late 2020 has now been reduced almost in half, down to now just 119.1mm, 47.3%ile since 2011 / 15.9%ile since 2018.

All the vol selling / overwriting (strangle selling “Gamma Hammer” flows, while picking-up again in single-names too, desk seeing it in HAL and IBM yday) is certainly pushing into “extreme” territory, as the nearly indiscriminate options selling has led to some pretty epic “Long Gamma” for Dealers:

• SPX $Gamma $44.2B / 95.5%ile

• QQQ $Gamma $730.9mm / 97.1%ile

Not surprisingly then in light of this insanely compressed volatility and price- / trend- stability, our CTA model estimates the aggregate portfolio gross-exposure at 94.9%

Ultimately, this is how “overpositioning” (via leverage accumulation) “tips over” – because “volatility is your exposure toggle” in the post GFC “negative convexity” market structure…but that said, you need a macro shock catalyst, and it feels like the market darn-well gets the joke on growing potential for a Fed acceleration if / when the Jobs picture accelerates.

Until then, market behavior is showing us that “short vol” / “carry” / “roll” remain the order of the day, until “new” Fed guidance comes off the back of additional economic data releases.