The Chicago Business Barometer fell sharply again in February, almost exactly as it had risen sharply in January. In fact, for the past year that has been the dominant pattern of sharp alternating swings between “growth” and “contraction.” Despite that, months showing up below 50 (this is still a PMI) are still somehow “unexpected”: Chicago-area business activity unexpectedly contracted in [...]
At first economists wanted to just ignore oil prices, as they were to be “transitory” or even beneficial to consumers everywhere around the world. The fact that economists would actually admit that low oil prices would be helpful (in a vacuum, they are) showed only the desperation given the seriousness of the “unexpected” surrender. Mainstream monetary theory rejects all falling [...]
The PBOC surprised some by lowering the reserve requirement for the Chinese banking system this morning. That marks the sixth reduction since February 4 last year, totaling 350 bps (the reduction on April 19 was 100 bps). By orthodox calculations, that should have added about RMB 2.45 trillion in new “liquidity” as banks freed from holding reserves would have forwarded [...]
When the Federal Reserve through its Open Market Desk engages in a transaction under QE or the current balance sheet stabilization (reinvesting maturing securities) with a primary dealer, the direct effect is to increase the dealer’s account with the Fed while decreasing that dealer’s stock of securities. On the other side, absent any offsetting absorptions (either intentional or autonomous), FRBNY’s [...]
The advance estimate for Q4 GDP was not appreciably different than the preliminary figures, changing +0.6% into +1.00033%. It wasn’t anywhere close to enough of a revision to meaningfully alter the picture of the 2015 economy. The average growth in 2015 was just 2.40% (until the next revision next month) compared to 2.43% in 2014; while the average of SAAR [...]
So thorough is the unwinding, they don’t know what to do about it. By “they” I mean policymakers, economists, the media, etc. For years, monetarism has been described as money printing, therefore all that was necessary was just the threat. Then the events of August 2007 intruded, and what was implicit became explicit. Central banks globally responded, since the wholesale/eurodollar [...]
Anything with a positive number and the mainstream will jump. The latest was durable goods which only featured a positive number in the seasonally-adjusted series. Still, it was enough to send out the usual notices that the worst is over even for manufacturing. The U.S. manufacturing sector could be on the mend after struggling for the past year with a [...]
All the warning signs were there, especially the backup in the CNY exchange rate. Chinese stocks had stood for a good run while the PBOC had flooded internal channels, but how much of that was real liquidity versus the appearance of stuffing funding into the narrow coffers of the largest state run banks? Increasingly it seemed far more the latter [...]
Back in September 2015, FactSet estimated that EPS for the S&P 500 would grow by almost 5% in Q1 2016. Their latest update is now -6.9%. Energy, of course, gets most of the blame but according to their latest breakdown it is widespread if of a smaller magnitude. For Q4, earnings are on track to contract by about 4%, and [...]
Unfortunately for Treasury Secretary Lew, the world keeps skewing closer and closer to the version suggested by “markets”, moving further and further from the one he and Janet Yellen declare the only valid possibility. The order and transmission of excuses has been entirely predictable, starting right with his “strong dollar.” 1. Dollar doesn’t matter, indicates strong economy relative to the [...]
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