Tag Archive: PMI

FX Daily, April 23: Greenback Slips into the Weekend

2021-04-23

by

2021-04-23

Overview:  Many narratives link the prospect of higher capital gains tax on about a third of 1% of Americans as the catalyst for losses in US equities yesterday (and Bitcoin) and weakness in some global shares today.  Of the large markets in the Asia Pacific region, only Japan, which is reimposing a formal emergency in Tokyo, Osaka, and two other prefectures, fell. 

Read More »

FX Daily, March 1: Animal Spirits Roar Like a Lion to Start the New Month

2021-03-01

by

2021-03-01

Overview:  Equities and bonds jump back.  Most Asia Pacific markets advanced 1.5-2.5% after the regional MSCI benchmark dropped 3.65% before the weekend and 5.3% last week.  The recovery in European stocks was even more impressive. 

Read More »

FX Daily, February 19: Equities Stabilizing While the Greenback Remains Under Pressure

2021-02-19

by

2021-02-19

Overview: The bond and equity markets are trying to stabilize ahead of the weekend.  The dollar remains under pressure.  In the Asia Pacific region, Hong Kong, China, and South Korean markets advanced, but most markets could not overcome the profit-taking pressures.

Read More »

FX Daily, February 3: The Greenback Remains Resilient as the Bulls Drive Equities Higher

2021-02-03

by

2021-02-03

Equities have charged higher, and the greenback is mostly firmer.  News that Draghi may become Italy's next Prime Minister has boosted Italian bonds.  The PBOC unexpectedly drained liquidity, and this may have deterred buying of Chinese stocks, a notable exception in the regional rally.

Read More »

FX Daily, February 1: Markets Snap Back

2021-02-01

by

2021-02-01

Global equities are snapping back today, while the greenback retained the strength seen last week that was attributed to safe-haven flows. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index snapped a four-day decline led by Hong Kong, South Korea, India, and Indonesia.

Read More »

FX Daily, January 6: High Drama Weighs on the Greenback and Lifts Yields

2021-01-06

by

2021-01-06

Overview:  One of the two Georgia Senate contests remains too close to call, but the market appears to be pricing in a Democrat sweep.  The 10-year yield has punched above 1% but has offered the greenback little support.  Yesterday, the dollar-bloc currencies rose to highs since early Q2 2018 and are extending those gains today. 

Read More »

Seizing The Dirt Shirt Title

2021-01-06

by

2021-01-06

China PMI, 2010-2020
In mid-December 2019, before the world had heard of COVID, China’s Central Economic Work Conference had released a rather startling statement for the world to consume. In the West, everything was said to be on the up. Central banks had responded, forcefully, many claimed, more than enough to deal with that year’s “unexpected” globally synchronized downturn.

Read More »

FX Daily, January 04: Rising Equities and Slumping Dollar Greet the New Year

2021-01-04

by

2021-01-04

Overview:  The first day of the New Year, but it feels a lot like last year.  The dollar is under pressure, and equities are higher.  Outside of Japan and Malaysia, The MSCI Asia Pacific Index extended last week's 3.6% gain. It has not rallied for seven consecutive sessions.

Read More »

FX Daily, November 4: Indecision Keeps Investors on Edge, but the Dollar Rides High

2020-11-04

by

2020-11-04

Initially, the markets built on Tuesday's price action, but as soon as a few counties in Florida indicated that it was not going to be the "blue wave," risk came off, and it was most evident in the bond and currency markets. Equities rallied in the Asia Pacific area, and all but Hong Kong, Australia, and Indonesia advanced. 

Read More »

FX Daily, October 05: Monday’s Dollar Blues

2020-10-05

by

2020-10-05

New actions to contain the virus are being taken in the US and Europe, but investors are looking past it and taking equities and risk assets, in general, higher to start the new week. MSCI Asia Pacific recouped most of last week's 0.7% loss with gains of move than 1% in Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Australia.

Read More »

What’s Zambia Got To With It (everything)

2020-10-01

by

2020-10-01

Argentina Bank
As one of Africa’s largest copper producers, it seemed like a no-brainer. Financial firms across the Western world, pension funds from the US or banks in Europe, they lined up for a bit of additional yield. This was 2012, still global recovery on the horizon – at least that’s what “they” all kept saying.

Read More »

FX Daily, September 23: Trying to Find Solid Ground

2020-09-23

by

2020-09-23

A more stable tone is evident in the capital markets after the S&P 500, and NASDAQ rose more than one percent yesterday.  Japan returned from a two-day holiday, and local shares slipped fractionally, while China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Australian shares rallied.  India and Taiwan fell.

Read More »

Purchasing Managers Indigestion

2020-08-06

by

2020-08-06

Europe ISM Non-Manufacturing Employment, Jan 2017 - Jul 2020
There’s already doubt given how the two major series supposedly measuring the same thing seemingly can’t agree. If the rebound was truly robust, it would show up unambiguously everywhere. But IHS Markit’s purchasing managers indices struggled to get back above 50 in July, barely getting there, suggesting the economy might be slowing or even stalling way too close to the bottom.

Read More »

FX Daily, July 24: Strong PMIs Have Limited Impact as Profit-Taking Hits Equities

2020-07-24

by

2020-07-24

US stocks stumbled yesterday, and the S&P 500 nearly gave back the week's gains with its roughly 1.25% loss, the largest of the month.  The NASDAQ 100 fell to two-week lows.  Slower cloud growth at Microsoft and a delay in the next generation of chips at Intel were among the drags.

Read More »

Gratuitously Impatient (For a) Rebound

2020-07-07

by

2020-07-07

ISM Purchasing Managers Indexes, 2008-2020
Jay Powell’s 2018 case for his economic “boom”, the one which was presumably behind his hawkish aggression, rested largely upon the unemployment rate alone. A curiously thin roster for a period of purported economic acceleration, one of the few sets joining that particular headline statistic in its optimism resides in the lower tiers of all statistics.

Read More »

What The PMIs Aren’t Really Saying, In China As Elsewhere

2020-07-01

by

2020-07-01

China PMI, 2010-2020
China’s PMI’s continue to impress despite the fact they continue to be wholly unimpressive. As with most economic numbers in today’s stock-focused obsessiveness, everything is judged solely by how much it “surprises.” Surprises who? Doesn’t matter; some faceless group of analysts and Economists whose short-term modeling has somehow become the very standard of performance.

Read More »

Not COVID-19, Watch For The Second Wave of GFC2

2020-06-27

by

2020-06-27

Federal Reserve SLOOS, 1990-2020
I guess in some ways it’s a race against the clock. What the optimists are really saying is the equivalent of the old eighties neo-Keynesian notion of filling in the troughs. That’s what government spending and monetary “stimulus” intend to accomplish, to limit the downside in a bid to buy time. Time for what? The economy to heal on its own.

Read More »

China’s Back!

2020-04-01

by

2020-04-01

China PMI, 2005-2020
The Washington Post began this week by noting how the US economy seems to have lost its purported zip just when it needed that vitality the most. Never missing a chance to take a partisan swipe, of course, still there’s quite a lot of truth behind the charge. An actual economic boom produces cushion, enough of one that President Trump and his administration may have been counting on it when opting for full-blown shutdown.

Read More »

Take Your Pick of PMI’s Today, But It’s Not Really An Either/Or

2020-03-06

by

2020-03-06

PMI's & GDP, 2012-2020
Take your pick, apparently. On the one hand, IHS Markit confirmed its flash estimate for the US economy during February. Late last month the group had reported a sobering guess for current conditions. According to its surveys of both manufacturers and service sector companies, the system stumbled badly last month, the composite PMI tumbling to 49.6 from 53.3 in January.

Read More »

Still Stuck In Between

2019-11-09

by

2019-11-09

IHS Markit U.S. Manufacturing, 2012-2019
There wasn’t much by way of the ISM’s Manufacturing PMI to allay fears of recession. Much like the payroll numbers, an uncolored analysis of them, anyway, there was far more bad than good. For the month of October 2019, the index rose slightly from September’s decade low. At 48.3, it was up just half a point last month from the month prior

Read More »