Category Archive: 5.) Alhambra Investments

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Was It A Midpoint And Did We Already Pass Through It?

2020-02-25

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2020-02-25

Benchmark 10-year UST, 2010-2013
We certainly don’t have a crystal ball at the ready, and we can’t predict the future. The best we might hope is to entertain reasonable probabilities for it oftentimes derived from how we see the past. Which is just what statistics and econometrics attempt. Except, wherein they go wrong we don’t have to make their mistakes.

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Time Again For Triple Digit Dollar

2020-02-23

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2020-02-23

Argentina Official Reserve Assets, 1998-2018
Being a member of the institutional “elite” means never having to say you’re sorry; or even admit that you have no idea what you are doing. For Christine Lagarde, Mario Draghi’s retirement from the European Central Bank could not have come at a more opportune moment. Fresh off the Argentina debacle, she failed herself upward to an even better gig.

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European Data: Much More In Store For Number Four

2020-02-18

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2020-02-18

European Economy, 2016-2019
It’s just Germany. It’s just industry. The excuses pile up as long as the downturn. Over across the Atlantic the situation has only now become truly serious. The European part of this globally synchronized downturn is already two years long and just recently is it becoming too much for the catcalls to ignore. Central bankers are trying their best to, obviously, but the numbers just aren’t stacking up their way.

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US Sales and Production Remain Virus-Free, But Still Aren’t Headwind-Free

2020-02-18

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2020-02-18

Retail Sales, NSA 2005-2020
The lull in US consumer spending on goods has reached a fifth month. The annual comparisons aren’t good, yet they somewhat mask the more recent problems appearing in the figures. According to the Census Bureau, total retail sales in January rose 4.58% year-over-year (unadjusted). Not a good number, but better, seemingly, than early on in 2019 when the series was putting out 3s and 2s.

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You Shouldn’t Miss The Cupom

2020-02-14

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2020-02-14

Dollar Correlations, 2017-2020
I actually wanted to focus on this yesterday but confirmation wasn’t forthcoming until today. So, it ended up being a broader note on the dollar which only included some mention of Brazil in passing. Still a worthwhile couple of minutes.

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As the Data Comes In, 2019 Really Did End Badly

2020-02-12

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2020-02-12

Europe Industrial Production, 2007-2019
The coronavirus began during December, but in its early stages no one knew a thing about it. It wasn’t until January 1 that health authorities in China closed the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market after initially determining some wild animals sold there might have been the source of a pneumonia-like outbreak. On January 5, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued a statement saying it wasn’t SARS or MERS, and that the spreading disease would be...

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Two Years And Now It’s Getting Serious

2020-02-11

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2020-02-11

Europe Industrial Production, 2007-2019
We knew German Industrial Production for December 2019 was going to be ugly given what deStatis had reported for factory orders yesterday. In all likelihood, Germany’s industrial economy ended last year sinking and maybe too quickly. What was actually reported, however, exceeded every pessimistic guess and expectation – by a lot.

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COT Black: German Factories, Oklahoma Tank Farms, And FRBNY

2020-02-09

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2020-02-09

Germany Factory Orders, SA 2014-2019
I wrote a few months ago that Germany’s factories have been the perfect example of the eurodollar squeeze. The disinflationary tendency that even central bankers can’t ignore once it shows up in the global economy as obvious headwinds. What made and still makes German industry noteworthy is the way it has unfolded and continues to unfold. The downtrend just won’t stop.

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Don’t Forget (Business) Credit

2020-02-05

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2020-02-05

Europe Real GDP, 1995-2019
Rolling over in credit stats, particularly business debt, is never a good thing for an economy. As noted yesterday, in Europe it’s not definite yet but sure is pronounced. The pattern is pretty clear even if we don’t ultimately know how it will play out from here. The process of reversing is at least already happening and so we are left to hope that there is some powerful enough positive force (a real force rather than imaginary, therefore...

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All-Stars #92 Jeff Snider: Did anything really get “better” last September?

2020-02-04

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Please visit our website www.macrovoices.com to register your free account to gain access to supporting materials. Go to : http://bit.ly/2Sg4W54 for Jeff's chartbook

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History Shows You Should Infer Nothing From Powell’s Pause

2020-02-02

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2020-02-02

The Fed Midpoint, 2007-2008
Jay Powell says that three’s not a crowd, at least not for his rate cuts, but four would be. As usual, central bankers like him always hedge and say that “should conditions warrant” the FOMC will be more than happy to indulge (the NYSE). But what he means in his heart of hearts is that there probably won’t be any need.

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Three Straight Quarters of 2 percent, And Yet Each One Very Different

2020-02-02

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2020-02-02

Eurodollar Disruption, Peaks & Troughs, 2011-2019
Headline GDP growth during the fourth quarter of 2019 was 2.05849% (continuously compounded annual rate), slightly lower than the (revised) 2.08169% during Q3. For the year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) puts total real output at $19.07 trillion, or annual growth of 2.33% and down from 2.93% in 2018. Last year was weaker than 2017, the second lowest out of the six since 2013.

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With No Second Half Rebound, Confirming The Squeeze

2020-01-29

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2020-01-29

Germany ZEW Financial Market Survey, 2006-2019
It’s a palpable impatience. Having learned absolutely nothing from the most recent German example, there’s this pervasive belief that if the economy hasn’t fallen apart by now it must be going the other way. The right way. Those are the only two options for mainstream analysis (which means it isn’t analysis).

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The Big And Small of Leading Japan

2020-01-23

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2020-01-23

Japan Trade & Production, 2016-2019
In the middle of 2018, Japan, they said, was riding so high. Gliding along on the tidal wave of globally synchronized growth, Haruhiko’s courage and more so patience had finally delivered the long-promised recovery. The Japanese economy had healed to a point that its central bank officials believed it time to wean the thing off decades of monetary “stimulus.”

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China Enters 2020 Still (Intent On) Managing Its Decline

2020-01-21

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2020-01-21

China Industrial Production, 1998-2019
Chinese Industrial Production accelerated further in December 2019, rising 6.9% year-over-year according to today’s estimates from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). That was a full percentage point above consensus. IP had bottomed out right in August at a record low 4.4%, and then, just as this wave of renewed optimism swept the world, it has rebounded alongside it.

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Germany, Maybe Europe: No Signs Of The Bottom

2020-01-19

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2020-01-19

Europe Industrial Production, 2007-2019
For anyone thinking the global economy is turning around, it’s not the kind of thing you want to hear. Germany has been Ground Zero for this globally synchronized downturn. That’s where it began, meaning first showed up, all the way back at the start of 2018. Ever since, the German economy has been pulling Europe down into the economic abyss along with it, being ahead of the curve in signaling what was to come for the whole rest of the global...

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Inflation, But Only At The Morgue

2020-01-18

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2020-01-18

Mortality Rates Divided by age group, 1999-2017
Why is everyone so angry? How can socialism possibly be on such a rise, particularly among younger people around the world? Why are Americans suddenly dying off? According to one study, two-thirds of millennials are convinced they are doing worse when compared to their parents’ generation. Sixty-two percent say they are living paycheck to paycheck, with no savings and no way to get any (though they also tend to “overspend” when compared to other...

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De-dollarization By Default Is Not What You Might Think

2020-01-17

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2020-01-17

CPMI Correspondent Banking Data, 2011-2018
Last month, a group of central bank governors from across the South Pacific region gathered in Australia to move forward the idea of a KYC utility. If you haven’t heard of KYC, or know your customer, it is a growing legal requirement that is being, and has been, imposed on banks all over the world. Spurred by anti-money laundering efforts undertaken first by the European Union, more and more governments are forcing global banks to take part.

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Clarida Picks Up Some Data

2020-01-16

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2020-01-16

China Exports, 2006-2019
I should know better than to make declarative all-or-none statements like this. I said there isn’t any data which comports with the idea of a global turnaround, this shakeup in sentiment which since early September has gone right from one extreme to the other. Recession fears predominated in summer only to be (rather easily) replaced by near euphoria (again).

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Very Rough Shape, And That’s With The Payroll Data We Have Now

2020-01-15

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2020-01-15

Household Survey: Civilian Employment, 2017-2019
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has begun the process of updating its annual benchmarks. Actually, the process began last year and what’s happening now is that the government is releasing its findings to the public. Up first is the Household Survey, the less-watched, more volatile measure which comes at employment from the other direction. As the name implies, the BLS asks households who in them is working whereas the more closely scrutinized...

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