Tag Archive: exports

Two Years And Now It’s Getting Serious

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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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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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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Clarida Picks Up Some Data

2020-01-16

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-16

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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The Real Trade Dilemma

2020-01-09

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-09

When I write that there are no winners around the world, what I mean is more comprehensive than just the trade wars. On that one narrow account, of course there are winners and losers. The Chinese are big losers, as the Census Bureau numbers plainly show (as well as China’s own). But even the winners of the trade wars find themselves wondering where all the spoils are.

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More Trends That Ended 2019 The Wrong Way

2020-01-08

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-08

Auto sales in 2019 ended on a skid. Still, the year as a whole wasn’t nearly as bad as many had feared. Last year got off on the wrong foot in the aftermath of 2018’s landmine, with auto sales like consumer spending down pretty sharply to begin it. Spending did rebound in mid-year if only somewhat, enough, though, to add a little more to the worst-is-behind-us narrative which finished off 2019.

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If Trade Wars Couldn’t, Might Pig Wars Change Xi’s Mind?

2019-12-12

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-12

Forget about trade wars, or even the eurodollar’s ever-present squeeze on China’s monetary system. For the Communist Chinese government, its first priority has been changed by unforeseen circumstances. At the worst possible time, food prices are skyrocketing. A country’s population will sit still for a great many injustices. From economic decay to corruption and rising authoritarianism, the line between back alley grumbling and open rebellion is...

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More Signals Of The Downturn, Globally Synchronized

2019-12-07

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-07

For US importers, October is their month. And it makes perfect sense how it would be. With the Christmas season about to kick into full swing each and every November, the time for retailers to stock up in hearty anticipation is in the weeks beforehand. The goods, a good many future Christmas presents, find themselves in transit from all over the world during the month of October.

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The Real Boom Potential

2019-11-12

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-12

For the last five years Larry Summers has called it secular stagnation. It’s the right general idea as far as the result, if totally wrong as to its cause. Alvin Hansen, who first coined the term and thought up the thesis in the thirties, was thoroughly disproved by the fifties. Some, perhaps many Economists today believe it was WWII which actually did the disproving.

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The Sudden Need For A Trade Deal

2019-11-09

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-09

US Imports of Goods from China, NSA 1989-2019

Talk of trade deals is everywhere. Markets can’t get enough of it, even the here-to-fore pessimistic bond complex. Rates have backed up as a few whispers of BOND ROUT!!! reappear from their one-year slumber. If Trump broke the global economy, then his trade deal fixes it. There’s another way of looking at it, though. Why did the President go spoiling for trouble with China in 2018?

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China’s Dollar Problem Puts the Sync In Globally Synchronized Downturn

2019-10-18

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-18

Because the prevailing theory behind the global slowdown is “trade wars”, most if not all attention is focused on China. While the correct target, everyone is coming it at from the wrong direction. The world awaits a crash in Chinese exports engineered by US tariffs. It’s not happening, at least according to China’s official statistics.

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Where The Global Squeeze Is Unmasked

2019-09-17

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-17

Trade between Asia and Europe has dimmed considerably. We know that from the fact Germany and China are the two countries out of the majors struggling the most right now. As a consequence of the slowing, shipping companies have had to make adjustments to their fleet schedules over and above normal seasonal variances.

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Is The Negativity Overdone?

2019-09-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-10

Give stimulus a chance, that’s the theme being set up for this week. After relentless buying across global bond markets distorting curves, upsetting politicians and the public alike, central bankers have responded en masse. There were more rate cuts around the world in August than there had been at any point since 2009.

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Japan: Fall Like Germany, Or Give Hope To The Rest of the World?

2019-08-29

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-08-29

After trading overnight in Asia, Japan’s government bond market is within a hair’s breadth of setting new record lows. The 10-year JGB is within a basis point and a fraction of one while the 5-year JGB has only 2 bps to reach. It otherwise seems at odds with the mainstream narrative at least where Japan’s economy is concerned.

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The Myth of CNY DOWN = STIMULUS Won’t Die

2019-08-11

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-08-11

On the one hand, it’s a small silver lining in how many even in the mainstream are beginning to realize that there really is something wrong. Then again, they are using “trade wars” to make sense of how that could be. For the one, at least they’ve stopped saying China’s economy is strong and always looks resilient no matter what data comes out.

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Commodities And The Future Of China’s Stall

2019-06-13

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-06-13

Commodity prices continued to fall last month. According to the World Bank’s Pink Sheet catalog, non-energy commodity prices accelerated to the downside. Falling 9.4% on average in May 2019 when compared to average prices in May 2018, it was the largest decline since the depths of Euro$ #3 in February 2016.

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All Of US Trade, Both Ways, And Much, Much More Than The Past Few Months

2019-06-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-06-10

The media quickly picked up on Jay Powell’s comments this week from Chicago. Much less talked about was why he was in that particular city. The Federal Reserve has been conducting what it claims is an exhaustive review of its monetary policies. Officials have been very quick to say they aren’t unhappy with them, no, no, no, they’re unhappy with the pitiful state of the world in which they have to be applied.

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Japan’s Surprise Positive Is A Huge Minus

2019-05-21

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-05-21

Preliminary estimates show that Japanese GDP surprised to the upside by a significant amount. According to Japan’s Cabinet Office, Real GDP expanded by 0.5% (seasonally-adjusted) in the first quarter of 2019 from the last quarter of 2018. That’s an annual rate of +2.1%. Most analysts had been expecting around a 0.2% contraction, which would’ve been the third quarterly minus out of the last five.

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Trade Wars Have Arrived, But It’s Trade Winter That Hurts

2019-05-13

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-05-13

U.S. Imports from China, Jan 1989 - 2019

There is truth to the trade war. That’s a big problem because it’s not the only problem. It isn’t even the main one. Given that, it’s easy to look at tariffs and see all our current ills in them. The Census Bureau reports today that the trade wars have definitely arrived. In March 2019, US imports from China plummeted by nearly 19% year-over-year.

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China’s Export Story Is Everyone’s Economic Base Case

2019-05-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-05-10

The first time the global economy was all set to boom, officials were at least more cautious. Chastened by years of setbacks and false dawns, in early 2014 they were encouraged nonetheless. The US was on the precipice of a boom (the first time), it was said, and though Europe was struggling it was positive with a more aggressive ECB emerging.

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