Tag Archive: Markets

February 2019 PBOC/RMB Update

2019-03-24

This will serve mostly as an update to what is going on inside the Chinese monetary system. The PBOC’s balance sheet numbers for February 2019 are exactly what we’ve come to expect, ironically confirmed today on the domestic end by the FOMC’s dreaded dovishness. Therefore, rather than rewrite the same commentary for why this continues to happen I’ll just link to prior discussions.

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Slump, Downturn, Recession; All Add Up To Sideways

2019-03-22

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-22

Germany ZEW Financial Market Survey 2007-2019

According to Germany’s Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung, or ZEW, the slump in the country’s economy has now reached its fourteenth month. The institute’s sentiment index has improved in the last two, but only slightly. As of the latest calculation released today, it stands at -3.6.

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The Real End of the Bond Market

2019-03-22

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-22

These things are actually quite related, though I understand how it might not appear to be that way at first. As noted earlier today, the Fed (yet again) proves it has no idea how global money markets work. They can’t even get federal funds right after two technical adjustments to IOER (the joke).

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The World Economy’s Industrial Downswing

2019-03-20

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-20

As economic data for 2019 comes in, the numbers continue to suggest more slowing especially in the goods economy. Perhaps what happened during that October-December window was a soft patch. Even if that was the case, we should still expect second and third order effects to follow along from it.

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Chart(s) of the Week: Reviewing Curve Warnings

2019-03-19

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-19

Quick review: stocks hit a bit of a rough patch right during the height of inflation hysteria. At the end of January 2018, just as the US unemployment rate had finally achieved the very center of attention, global markets were rocked by instability. Unexpectedly, of course.

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No Sign of Stimulus, Or Global Growth, China’s Economy Sunk By (euro)Dollar

2019-03-16

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-16

Najib Tun Razak was elected as Malaysia’s Prime Minister in early 2009. Taking office that April amid global turmoil and chaos, Najib’s first official visit was to Beijing in early June. His father, also Malaysia’s Prime Minister, had been the first among Asian nations to open formal diplomatic relations with China thirty-five years before.

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Downturn Rising, No ‘Glitch’ In Retail Sales

2019-03-13

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-13

You just don’t see $4 billion monthly retail sales revisions, in either direction. Advance estimates are changed all the time, each monthly figure will be recalculated twice after its initial release. Typically, though, the subsequent revisions are minor rarely amounting to a billion. Four times that?

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Downturn Rising, German Industry

2019-03-12

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-12

US Treasury Yield Curve, Aug 2007 - Jan 2019

You know things have really changed when Economists start revising their statements more than the data. What’s going on in the global economy has quickly reached a critical stage. This represents a big shift in expectations, a really big one, especially in the mainstream where the words “strong” and “boom” couldn’t have been used any more than they were.

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Not Buying The New Stimulus

2019-03-08

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-08

What just happened in Europe? The short answer is T-LTRO. The ECB is getting back to being “accommodative” again. This isn’t what was supposed to be happening at this point in time. Quite the contrary, Europe’s central bank had been expecting to end all its programs and begin normalizing interest rates.

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Labor Shortage America has been Canceled

2019-03-07

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-07

The holiday season was shaping up to be a good one, perhaps a very good one. All the signs seemed to be pointing in that direction, especially if you were a worker. All throughout last year, beginning partway through 2017, there wasn’t a day that went by without some mainstream story “reporting” on America’s labor shortage.

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China Has No Choice

2019-03-06

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-06

China’s central bank was given more independence to conduct monetary policies in late 2003. It had been operating under Order No. 46 of the President of the People’s Republic of China issued in March 1995, which led the 3rd Session of the Eighth National People’s Congress (China’s de facto legislature) to create and adopt the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the People’s Bank of China.

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Meanwhile, Over In Asia

2019-03-02

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-02

Japan Industrial Production, SA 2008-2019

While Western markets breathed a sigh of relief that US GDP didn’t confirm the global slowdown, not yet, what was taking place over in Asia went in the other direction. There has been a sense, a wish perhaps, that if the global economy truly did hit a rough spot it would be limited to just the last three months of 2018. Hopefully Mario Draghi is on to something.

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No Surprise, Hysteria Wasn’t a Sound Basis For Interpretation

2019-02-28

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-28

Labor Utilization Total Hours Worked 2008-2018

What gets them into trouble is how they just can’t help themselves. Go back one year, to early 2018. Last February it was all-but-assured (in mainstream coverage) that the US economy was going to take off. The bond market, meaning UST’s, was about to be massacred because the overheating boom would force a double shot down its throat.

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The Fate of Real Estate

2019-02-27

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-27

NAR Inventory of Homes For Sale, NSA 2014-2019

For years, realtors have been waiting for more housing inventory. It had become an article of faith, what was restraining a full-blown recovery was the lack of units available. The level of resales like construction was up, but still way, way less than it was now fourteen years past the prior peak despite sufficient population growth to have absorbed the previous bubble’s overbuilding.

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Sinking Shippers Signal Global Goods Troubles

2019-02-24

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-24

It infects every boardroom across the world. Big business requires decent forecasting, yet time and again it seems they are deprived of what they desperately need. Instead, even after this last decade, the world’s largest companies continue to be surprised by weakness that is far more prevalent than strength.

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FOMC Minutes: The New Narrative Takes Shape

2019-02-22

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-22

Nothing the Fed did today, or has done up to today, has changed the curves. Eurodollar futures and UST’s, they are both still inverted. The former sharply inverted. The only thing that has changed since early January is the narrative – and not in a charitable way. It is treated as a positive when it is a pretty visible signal about deteriorating circumstances.

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Something Different About This One

2019-02-22

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-22

China Retail Sales, Automobiles 2001-2018

In Japan, they call it “powerful monetary easing.” In practice, it is anything but. QQE with all its added letters is so authoritative that it is knocked sideways by the smallest of economic and financial breezes. If it truly worked the way it was supposed to, the Bank of Japan or any central bank would only need it for the shortest of timeframes.

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Getting Back Up To Speed On Loss Of Speed in US Economy

2019-02-21

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-21

U.S Industrial Production Real Personal Income Vehicle Sales, Jan 2010

For much of 2018, the idea of “overseas turmoil” lived up to its name. At least in economic terms. Market-wise, there was a lot domestically to draw anyone’s honest attention. Warnings were everywhere by the end of the year. And that was what has been at issue. Some said Europe and China are on their own, the US is cocooned in a tax cut-fueled boom. Decoupling, only now the other way around.

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China’s Big Money Gamble

2019-02-19

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-19

World Bank Pink Sheet Commodity Indices 1995-2019

While oil prices rebounded in January 2019 around the world, outside of crude commodities continued to struggle. According to the World Bank’s Pink Sheet, base metal prices fell another 1.8% on average from December. On an annual basis, these commodities as a group are about 16% below where they were in January 2018.

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Retail Sales Landmine

2019-02-18

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-18

Ignore Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Those are merely an appetizer, an intentional preamble to whet the appetite of hungry consumers looking to splurge. The real action comes in December. People look, some buy, after Thanksgiving, but as anyone counts down the actual twelve days of Christmas and celebrates the eight crazy nights of Hanukkah that’s when the retail industry makes its bank.

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