Tag Archive: currencies

Take Your Pick of PMI’s Today, But It’s Not Really An Either/Or

2020-03-06

Take your pick, apparently. On the one hand, IHS Markit confirmed its flash estimate for the US economy during February. Late last month the group had reported a sobering guess for current conditions. According to its surveys of both manufacturers and service sector companies, the system stumbled badly last month, the composite PMI tumbling to 49.6 from 53.3 in January.

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The Greenspan Moon Cult

2020-03-05

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-03-05

Taking another look at what I wrote about repo and the latest developments yesterday, it may be worthwhile to spend some additional time on the “why” as it pertains to so much determined official blindness, an unshakeable devotion to otherwise easily explained lunar events.

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A Day For Rate Cuts

2020-03-04

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-03-04

Well, that wasn’t he had in mind. The whole point of a rate cut, any rate cut let alone an emergency fifty, is to signal especially the stock market that the Fed is in the business of…something. The public has been led, by and large, to assume that something good happens when the Fed Chair shows up on TV.

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Economy: Curved Again

2020-02-27

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-27

Earlier today, Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) confirmed the country’s economy is in recession. Updating its estimate for Q4 GDP, year-over-year output declined by 0.5% rather than -0.3% as first thought. On a quarterly basis, GDP was down for the second consecutive quarter which mainstream convention treats as a technical recession.

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Schaetze To That

2020-02-26

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-26

When Mario Draghi sat down for his scheduled press conference on April 4, 2012, it was a key moment and he knew it. The ECB had finished up the second of its “massive” LTRO auctions only weeks before. Draghi was still relatively new to the job, having taken over for Jean-Claude Trichet the prior November amidst substantial turmoil.

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

2020-02-25

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-25

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-18

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-18

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-14

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-12

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-11

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-09

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-05

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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History Shows You Should Infer Nothing From Powell’s Pause

2020-02-02

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-02

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-23

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-21

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

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-19

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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