The GDP statistics for Brazil as of Q3 2015 were worse than expected in every way imaginable. Real GDP fell 4.5% Y/Y, which is nearly double the worst quarter Brazil experienced during the Great Recession. Household spending fell 1.7%, the third consecutive quarter of contraction, while fixed investment declined an astounding 15%. That was the sixth straight reduction and the [...]
For the tenth straight week, dating back to the week just before the global liquidations in August, reported domestic crude inventories increased. At 489.4 million barrels, the current level of oil stock (excluding the SPR) is only slightly less than the record high of 490.9 million barrels reached the week of April 24. “Transitory” is dead. The increase in oil [...]
There isn’t much as far as confirmation, but it increasingly appears as if “something” just hit the triple hooks (CCC) in the junk bond bubble. At least as far as one view of it, Bank of America ML’s CCC implied yield, there was a huge selloff that brought the yield to a new cycle high (low in price) above even [...]
The call for minimizing the onrushing downdraft has continued, particularly in the wake of yesterday’s huge disappointment in the ISM. Where the “12%” figure had slowly entered the mainstream lexicon before, it has fast become fully incorporated into any article’s template. There are hardly any pieces about the curious manufacturing recession that don’t mention it, as it has evolved into [...]
To this point, I have refrained from presenting Morgan Stanley’s balance sheet reporting on gross derivative exposures because, quite frankly, it fits too perfectly. The bank follows the wholesale “dollar” narrative so closely that it almost seems too good (bad for the financialized economy) to be true, and thus almost diminishes the value of the evidence by extension. Because of [...]
On November 9, the OECD issued its twice-yearly Economic Outlook statbook, updated for projections into Q3 for most national economic accounts. Despite past enthusiasm for global prospects in 2015, the narrative has not-so-subtly shifted, a major transformation coming from an orthodox bastion like the OECD. Global growth prospects have clouded this year. Global growth has eased to around 3%, well [...]
Despite everything that happened in July and August throughout the financial world, there remained a tendency to simply dismiss it as anomalous. That was curious in and of itself, but that the global liquidations then were not isolated but rather the latest in a continuing string of “odd” events strains such determined dimness. We have arrived at a point in [...]
The initial estimates for Black Friday spending are pretty grim; you can make that interpretation based only on the press releases themselves as neither of the words “strong” or “robust” appear in them. According to ShopperTrak, actual sales (mall sales) on Black Friday itself were up almost 15% from last year but only because there was a clear revulsion against [...]
Chinese stocks “unexpectedly” plunged last week in a fit of stormed selling that reminded of August rather than the placidity that has been claimed of China since. By mainstream account, China has fixed its bout of “selling UST” and “outflows” while also providing two double doses of “stimulus.” The PBOC had even taken to a higher fix in the middle [...]
On December 11, 2014, spot WTI closed at $60.01, down sharply from $76.52 the week before that Thanksgiving. In the space of only a few weeks, oil prices had collapsed far more than anyone thought possible; and yet there was very little urgency to the outcome. Economists, in particular, parroted throughout the media, were quick to assert both a supply [...]
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