Tag Archive: global trade

The Real Trade Dilemma

2020-01-09

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2020-01-09

US Imports of Goods, NSA 2016-2019
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

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2020-01-08

US Trade, SA 2016-2019
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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Everything Comes Down To Which Way The Dollar Is Leaning

2019-12-21

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2019-12-21

Rising Dollar Squeeze
Is the global economy on the mend as everyone at least here in America is now assuming? For anyone else to attempt to answer that question, they might first have to figure out what went wrong in the first place. Most have simply assumed, and continue to assume, it has been fallout from the “trade wars.”

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

2019-12-12

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2019-12-12

China Price Stability, 1996-2019
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

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2019-12-07

US Imports of Goods, NSA 1989-2019
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

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2019-11-12

China Exports, 1998-2019
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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China’s Dollar Problem Puts the Sync In Globally Synchronized Downturn

2019-10-18

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2019-10-18

China Exports, 2006-2019
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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The Big Picture Doesn’t Include ‘Trade Wars’

2019-10-04

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2019-10-04

WTO International Trade Forecasts, 2008-2020
The WTO today downgraded its estimates for global trade growth. In April, the international organization had figured the total volume of world merchandise trade would expand by about 2.6% in all of 2019 once the year closed out on the anticipated second half rebound. Everyone took their lumps in H1 and the WTO like central bankers everywhere were thinking “transitory” factors.

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Waiting on the Calvary

2019-09-26

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2019-09-26

WTO Global Trade, 2007-2019
Engaged in one of those protectionist trade spats people have been talking about, the flow of goods between South Korea and Japan has been choked off. The specific national reasons for the dispute are immaterial. As trade falls off everywhere, countries are increasingly looking to protect their own. Nothing new, this is a feature of when prolonged stagnation turns to outright contraction.

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Where The Global Squeeze Is Unmasked

2019-09-17

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2019-09-17

US Exports of Goods, NSA 1989-2019
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

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2019-09-10

China Exports, 2006-2019
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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Copper Confirmed

2019-09-04

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2019-09-04

Copper NBS, August 2016 - 2019
Copper prices behave more deliberately than perhaps prices in other commodity markets. Like gold, it is still set by a mix of economic (meaning physical) and financial (meaning collateral and financing). Unlike gold, there doesn’t seem to be any rush to get to wherever the commodity market is going. Over the last several years, it has been more long periods of sideways.

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The Myth of CNY DOWN = STIMULUS Won’t Die

2019-08-11

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2019-08-11

China Exports, 2006-2019
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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Germany Struggles On

2019-07-25

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2019-07-25

Germany ZEW Financial Market Survey, Jan 2006 - 2019
The popular image of the German industrial machine politics is one which has Germany’s massive factories efficiently churning out goods for trade with the South of Europe (Club Med). Because of the common currency, numerous disparities starting with productivity differences had left the South highly indebted to the North just as the Global Financial Crisis would strike.

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Commodities And The Future Of China’s Stall

2019-06-13

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2019-06-13

China Exports, 2006-2019
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

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2019-06-10

US Imports of Goods from China, NSA 1989-2019
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

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2019-05-21

Japan Real GDP, 2008-2019
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

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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

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2019-05-10

China Exports, 1998-2018
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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Coloring One Green Shoot

2019-04-16

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2019-04-16

China Retail Sales, 2010-2018
China’s Passenger Car Association reported last week that retail sales of various vehicles totaled 1.78 million units in March 2019. The total was 12% less than the number of automobiles sold in March 2018. This matches the government’s data, both sets very clear as to when Chinese economic struggles accelerated: May 2018.

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