Given the outward expression of the “dollar” in various proxies, it is not surprising to see the inward development continue in the same pattern. Interbank rates and estimates are in many cases surging, particularly in the second half of July which matches the acceleration in the outward projections. This direction is nearly uniform, which confirms that the latest “dollar” problems [...]
The broad survey in funding terms suggests that funding markets have been more disturbed in the past few weeks than broader credit markets. That isn’t to say that credit is unaffected, only the degree is in argument. The treasury curve has renewed its flattening tempo and nominal rates are somewhat leaning in the lower direction. The difference may simply be [...]
By most accounts, crude oil prices are still nearing their March lows. That would suggest that this version of “dollar” turmoil might be yet working its way toward levels of disorder previously seen in that last episode. That is misleading, as even crude prices are appreciably more stressed now than they were in March. From that, it follows that other [...]
China’s economy is sliding and nobody can really tell where that downturn will end (though it doesn’t stop the media from proclaiming a bottom at each individual upward variation). Brazil’s economy is in the worst shape in decades, with both volume problems coinciding with the real’s sharp devaluation hammering consumer prices. The country’s central bank has managed to make it [...]
With base comparisons out of the way moving past the calendar months of Japan’s tax change last year, the continuing recession re-emerges. Real wages fell 2.9% year-over-year in June despite “inflation” remaining far below (thankfully for the Japanese) Bank of Japan’s intentions. Contractual earnings nominally were slightly higher but “special cash earnings” fell 6.5% after rising 25% in May. That [...]
There was absolutely nothing good about the most recent trade data for June. Even what looked like an improvement really wasn’t, suggesting, strongly, that conditions in the global economy are still declining. With Canada falling to recession, blaming a “puzzling” and sharp decline in non-petroleum exports (the US as that nation’s biggest customer), the decline in US import “demand” completing [...]
When looking at cyclical inflections, GDP is the last to know about it. That has been the case at cyclical turns in each of the last three peaks, most especially how GDP treated the first half of the Great Recession. More recently, given the abomination of cyclical behavior, GDP finally after three years caught up with the 2012 slowdown. As [...]
With factory orders continuing to be much worse than they appear, it makes sense to try to measure the effect of over-optimism accounted by inventory. Recessions themselves were once almost exclusively set up by this one factor, as the difference between production and sales, caught up within the supply chain, eventually works out toward alignment. Companies are willing to hold [...]
For the most part, the descriptions of factory orders released this morning tend toward the seasonally-adjusted monthly variation. That is unsurprising given how much continued focus there is in just the narrowest of timeframes, leaving that as the basis for enlarging extrapolations. For June, factory orders were up 1.84% after dropping a revised 1.09% in May. That sounds hopeful and [...]
The San Francisco Fed just published a study in its Economic Letter that purports both that the housing bubble was exogenous and that the Fed would have had to crash the economy to a much greater extent than even the Great Recession to gain control of it somewhat pre-emptively. As you can easily surmise, there are a whole host of [...]
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