Tag Archive: GDP

Is It Recession?

2022-04-30

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2022-04-30

According to today’s advance estimate for first quarter 2022 US real GDP, the third highest (inflation-adjusted) inventory build on record subtracted nearly a point off the quarter-over-quarter annual rate. Yes, you read that right; deducted from growth, as in lowered it. This might seem counterintuitive since by GDP accounting inventory adds to output.

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Did China’s Politburo Throw Markets a Lifeline?

2022-04-29

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2022-04-29

Overview: Speculation that a midday statement by China's Politburo signals new efforts to support the economy ahead of  next week's holiday appears to have stirred the animal spirits. 

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Shanghai’s Current Plight Began in 2017

2022-04-23

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2022-04-23

The first chapters to China’s new story now playing out in Shanghai were written down in October 2017. Planning for them had begun years earlier, their author Xi Jinping requiring more research before committing them to paper. Communist authorities there had grown increasingly concerned about the lack of growth potential for its political system by then utterly dependent for a quarter-century on the economy growing.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Growth Scare?

2021-11-01

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2021-11-01

A couple of weeks ago the 10 year Treasury note yield rose 16 basis points in the course of 5 trading days. That move was driven by near term inflation fears as I discussed last week. Long term inflation expectations were and are well behaved.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Inflation Scare!

2021-10-25

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2021-10-25

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial stock averages made new all time highs last week as bonds sold off, the 10 year Treasury note yield briefly breaking above 1.7% before a pretty good sized rally Friday brought the yield back to 1.65%. And thus we’re right back where we were at the end of March when the 10 year yield hit its high for the year.

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Measuring Inflation and the Week Ahead

2021-07-12

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2021-07-12

There is quite an unusual price context for new week's economic events, which include June US CPI, retail sales, and industrial production, along with China's Q2 GDP, and the meetings for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of Japan.

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Central Banks Will Still Do “Whatever It Takes”!

2021-03-06

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2021-03-06

Governments are taking a page out of the play book that monetary policy began a decade ago – which will lead to even higher debt levels.

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There Have Actually Been Some Jobs Saved, Only In Place of Recovery

2020-12-04

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2020-12-04

IHS Markit US Manufacturing, 2012-2020
The ISM reported a small decline in its manufacturing PMI today. The index had moved up to 59.3 for the month of October 2020 in what had been its highest since September 2018. For November, the setback was nearly two points, bringing the headline down to an estimate of 57.5.

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The Prices And Costs Of What Xi Believes He’s Got To Do

2020-11-12

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2020-11-12

China Exports, 1995-2020
It does seem, at first, a huge contradiction. On the one hand, what we know so far of China’s 14th 5-year plan apparently will lean heavily on new technologies not-yet invented to rescue the country’s economy from the pit of de-globalization the eurodollar system had thrown it into years ago.

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Writing Rebound in Italian

2020-09-04

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2020-09-04

Real GDP Pro forma, 2005-2023
As the calendar turned to September, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new guidelines expanding and extending existing moratoriums previously put in place to stop evictions during the pandemic.

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Meaning Mexico

2020-08-25

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2020-08-25

Mexico Light Vehicle Production, Jan 2006 - Jul 2020
It took some doing, and some time, but Mexico has managed to bring its car production back up to more normal levels. For two months, there had been practically zero automaking in one of the biggest auto-producing nations. Getting back near where things left off, however, isn’t exactly a “V” shaped recovery; it’s only halfway.

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ECB Doubles Its QE; Or, The More Central Banks Do The Worse You Know It Will Be

2020-06-07

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2020-06-07

ECB/Eurostaff Inflation Projections, 2017-2020
A perpetual motion machine is impossible, but what about a perpetual inflation machine? This is supposed to be the printing press and central banks are, they like to say, putting it to good and heavy use. But never the inflation by which to confirm it. So round and round we go. The printing press necessary to bring about consumer price acceleration, only the lack of consumer price acceleration dictates the need for more of the printing press.

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GDP + GFC = Fragile

2020-05-01

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2020-05-01

March 15 was when it all began to come down. Not the stock market; that had been in freefall already, beset by the rolling destruction of fire sale liquidations emanating out of the repo market (collateral side first). No matter what the Federal Reserve did or announced, there was no stopping the runaway devastation.

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Stagnation Never Looked So Good: A Peak Ahead

2020-03-21

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2020-03-21

Germany ZEW Financial Market Survey, 2006-2020
Forward-looking data is starting to trickle in. Germany has been a main area of interest for us right from the beginning, and by beginning I mean Euro$ #4 rather than just COVID-19. What has happened to the German economy has ended up happening everywhere else, a true bellwether especially manufacturing and industry.

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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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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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FX Weekly Preview: The Week Ahead and Why the FOMC Meeting may not be the Most Interesting

2020-01-27

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2020-01-27

The week ahead is arguably the most important here at the start of 2020.  The Federal Reserve and the Bank of England meet. The US and the eurozone report initial estimates of Q4 19 GDP.  The eurozone also reports its preliminary estimate of January CPI.  China returns from the extended Lunar New Year celebration and reports its official PMI.  Japan will report December retail sales and industrial production. 

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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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Not Abating, Not By A Longshot

2020-01-14

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2020-01-14

Mexican Economy, 2006-2019
Since I advertised the release last week, here’s Mexico’s update to Industrial Production in November 2019. The level of production was estimated to have fallen by 1.8% from November 2018. It was up marginally on a seasonally-adjusted basis from its low in October.

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Nothing Good From A Chinese Industrial Recession

2019-11-30

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2019-11-30

China Industry, 2001-2019
October 2017 continues to show up as the most crucial month across a wide range of global economic data. In the mainstream telling, it should have been a very good thing, a hugely positive inflection. That was the time of true inflation hysteria around the globe, though it was always presented as a rationally-determined base case rather than the unsupported madness it really was.

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