Tag Archive: macro

Week Ahead: China Returns and Flash PMI Featured after US Rate Adjustment was Extended

2024-02-17

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2024-02-17

The US January CPI and PPI came in stronger than expected and this extended the recovery in US interest rates. In turn that helped underpin the dollar. We do not think the data itself changes the Fed's stance. At least seven Fed officials speaking in the coming days will test this hypothesis. There are still several key reports before the data dependent FOMC meets again in about four weeks.

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Week Ahead: Will Soft US CPI and Retail Sales Mark the End of the Interest Rate Adjustment and Help Cap the Greenback?

2024-02-10

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2024-02-10

The markets are still correcting from the overshoot on rates and the dollar that took place in late 2023. The first Fed rate cut has been pushed out of March and odds of a May move have been pared to the lowest since last November. The extent of this year's cuts has been chopped to about 4.5 quarter-point move (~112 bp) from more than six a month ago. The market has reduced the extent of ECB cuts to about 114 bp (from 160 bp at the end of January...

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Week Ahead: Markets Digest New Economic Divergence after US Employment Report

2024-02-03

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2024-02-03

The US employment data blew away expectations, jumping by 353k, nearly twice the median forecasts. That, coupled with the 0.6% rise in average hourly earnings, which was also twice expectations, helped drive home the Federal Reserve's reluctance to endorse what had been market speculation of a March rate cut and an aggressive rate cutting sequence. The dollar had softened as US rates eased following the FOMC meeting and new strains among regional...

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February 2023 Monthly

2024-01-27

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2024-01-27

The coming weeks will likely continue the correction of the trends that began last month. The markets recognize that tightening cycle is over. However, they swung hard, pricing in aggressive easing by most of the G10 central banks, including the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. Official comments and some high-frequency economic data have encouraged participants to rein in their expectations, reducing the odds of a rate cuts in Q1 and...

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Week Ahead: Too Early for Central Banks to Move, and Q4 GDP to Showcase US Economic Resilience (with the help of 6.5% budget deficit)

2024-01-20

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2024-01-20

The week ahead features the first estimate of US Q4 GDP, which will be revised for the next couple of years, and policy meetings by the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada, and Norges Bank, Norway's central bank. Although the market anticipates the beginning of an aggressive easing cycle by several central banks, and an exit of the BOJ's negative interest rate policy, the start is not expected until later in the first half....

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Week Ahead: Real Economy

2024-01-13

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2024-01-13

Given the world's turmoil, including the escalation, and broadening of the conflict in the Middle East and China's continued aerial harassment of Taiwan ahead of the election, the capital and commodity markets have remained firm. February WTI fell about 1.7% last week and March Brent slipped around 0.65%. Shipping costs are rising as the Rea Sea is avoided and supply chain disruptions are threatened. Still the MSCI index of developed equity market...

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Week Ahead: Attention Turns Back to Inflation

2024-01-06

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2024-01-06

The terribly mixed US jobs report spurred dramatic intraday swings in exchange and US interest rates. But at the close, the dollar was little changed against most major currencies, and expectations for Fed policy was nearly unchanged. The futures market has about a 70% chance of a cut at the March meeting. The Dollar Index was off by less than 0.1%. Job growth held up better than expected in December, the unemployment rate held steady, and average...

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January 2024 Monthly

2023-12-30

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2023-12-30

The only thing that can be said with high confidence about the year ahead is that it will be different from 2023. Three broad forces will shape the business and investment climate in the year ahead.First, the post-Covid tightening cycle in the high-income countries, leaving aside Japan, has ended. The question is when and how fast rate cuts will be delivered. Moderating price pressures and weaker growth impulses have seen the pendulum of market...

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Week Ahead: What Central Banks Say may be More Important than What They Do

2023-12-09

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2023-12-09

There were three outsized moves last week. Gold had a $135 range on Monday, posted a key downside reversal, and fell below $2000 at the end of the week after setting a record high slightly above $2135. January WTI neared $80 on December 1 and traded below $69 on December 7, its lowest level in five months. The seven-week slide matches the longest since July/August 2015. Third, the dollar fell by a little more than 2.1% on December 7 against the...

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December 2023 Monthly

2023-12-02

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2023-12-02

As the year winds down, the global economy appears to be entering a new phase. While North American and European central bankers swear that they are prepared to respond to new threats to price stability, the markets demur. Indicative pricing in the derivatives markets reflects the general conclusion that the central banks have most likely completed the post-Covid monetary tightening cycle. Central bankers are pushing against a premature easing of...

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Week Ahead: US PCE Deflator, EMU CPI, China PMI, OPEC+, and COP28

2023-11-25

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2023-11-25

The dollar fell against all the G10 currencies last week. The dollar-bloc currencies, sterling, and the Scandis  led the move, appreciating by about 0.55%-1.40% against the US dollar.  The dollar bloc and sterling recorded new highs for the month ahead of the weekend. Against the others, the dollar spent most of last week consolidating after its recent losses were extended at the start of the week. Still, our review of the technical condition warns...

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Short Note for the Day after Thanksgiving

2023-11-24

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2023-11-24

Price Action:  Since the North American markets closed Wednesday, the foreign exchange market has been subdued.  Most of the major currencies are +/- 0.2%.  The Antipodeans and sterling have risen a bit more.  The euro is in the middle of this week’s range (~$1.0850-$1.0965).  The dollar is at the upper end of this week's range against the Japanese yen (~JPY147.15-JPY149.75).  Sterling is trading near the high for...

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Week Ahead: How Hard Will Officials Push Against the Easing of Financial Conditions?

2023-11-18

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2023-11-18

The combination of soft US price data and mostly weaker economic data lends credence to a new economic convergence. The economic news stream from Europe, Japan, and China is not particular inspiring. Rather the convergence is driven by the materialism of the long-anticipated slowdown of the world's largest economy. This new convergence is negative for the dollar. Our conservative working hypothesis continues to be that the US dollar's gains from...

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Week Ahead: Will Softer US Price Pressures and Weakness in Retail Sales Weigh on the US Dollar and Rates?

2023-11-11

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2023-11-11

The recent dollar gyrations seem tightly linked to US rates. The FOMC meeting and October jobs report saw the two-year Treasury yield drop 17 bp and the dollar was taken broadly lower. Indeed, against several currency pairs, it approached three standard deviations below its 20-day moving average. What seemed like a mild adjustment to the over-extended technical development turned into a rout after a weak reception to the US 30-year bond auction to...

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Week Ahead: Have the Markets Turned?

2023-11-04

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2023-11-04

An inflection point may have been reached last week. Despite, Chair Powell's insistence that the Fed did not adopt an easing bias and confirmed that there is still no talk of a cut, the market knows better. The implied yield of December 2024 Fed funds futures contract is about 4.45%, which is to say, the market is discounting not only the two cuts in the Fed's September projections, but a third cut, and the risk again (~60%), of a fourth cut. The...

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November 2023 Monthly

2023-10-28

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2023-10-28

November may be an in-between month. It will be a month of limited monetary policy actions and a period of heightened geopolitical tensions. Fiscal policy may be more interesting, with a Japanese supplemental budget, more measures expected from China, and a debate in Europe over the re-implementation of the Stability and Growth Agreement. In the US, the drama that played out in the House of Representatives could still leave the federal government...

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Week Ahead: Q3 US GDP to Underscore Divergence, while ECB and Bank of Canada Stand Pat

2023-10-21

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2023-10-21

The US dollar was mixed last week. One would have thought, based on the geopolitical tensions, the stronger than expected US economic data that resulted in upward revisions to Q3 GDP forecasts and a more than 30 bp surge in US 10-year yields, the greenback would have performed better. The Dollar Index fell by almomst 0.5% last week, its biggest weekly loss in three months. It is down so far this month. On the other hand, gold rallied 2.5% to extend...

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Week Ahead: Softness in US Real Sector, Key UK and Canadian Data, and China’s Q3 GDP

2023-10-14

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2023-10-14

The markets absorbed two shocks last week. The war in Israel that seems to know of no restraint underpinned oil prices and appeared to help boost gold and the Swiss franc, the only G10 currency to appreciate against the dollar. The other was the continued deluge of US Treasury supply, the coupon auctions that tailed and higher than expected PPI and CPI. Nevertheless, the US 10- and 30-year yields fell nearly 20 bp last week, snapping a six-week...

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Week Ahead: King Dollar Stalls

2023-10-07

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2023-10-07

The US reports September CPI on October 12 and the first decline in three months in the year-over-year rate is expected. However, the price action itself may overshadow not only the CPI but other high-frequency data in the week ahead. US grew more than twice the number of jobs in September as economists expected. US interest rates and the dollar jumped initially, and stocks were dumped. And then they reversed. Many narratives will be spun to...

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October 2023 Monthly

2023-09-30

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2023-09-30

There are four large macro forces shape the investment and business climate here at the start of the last quarter of the year. First, the US economic outperformance has been stark. This has helped underpin US rates and bolsters the dollar. The divergence is likely to narrow in coming months as US growth slows rather than stronger growth prospects in other high-income countries. Second, Beijing has taken numerous measures, which although stopping...

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