With Brazil in recession and much of the “resource” part of the supply chain nearing that or worrying about it, you can surely bet that there are “unexpected” problems in the Chinese economy. As much as the word “decoupling” is being used once again (though in 2008 it was reversed, with the world supposedly able to decouple from US weakness) [...]
Last week was pretty much a disaster, not just economically speaking, for a wide swath of the globe – from Japan’s ongoing "unexpected" collapse to Europe’s "unexpected" third go at contraction (without recovery) to a very dim and "unexpected" view of credit markets pretty much everywhere including the US. This week started out with more grimness, in places like China [...]
Stocks pulled back a bit last week based on the re-emergence of turmoil in Iraq (did it really ever subside or did we just stop paying attention?) and if you believe some of the pundits, Eric Cantor's loss of his primary in VA. That's the first time a House majority leader has ever lost a primary in trying to retain [...]
The global dollar situation continues to get muddied by divergent and apparently unrelated factors of significant scale. The Chinese are still not buying UST with nearly the same vigor that was very evident prior to the dollar travails last year (which I still believe is dollar liquidity rather than PBOC intent), while Japan and Belgium have suddenly found themselves infatuated [...]
The news from China this morning was unexpected only to those who still cling to the idea that the PBOC control is omnipresent. Exports were down 6.6% Y/Y in March (after dropping 18.1% Y/Y in February), while imports simply collapsed 11.3% Y/Y. Since China has been operating as the global trade pivot, the results on both sides of the trade [...]
I’m not sure what popular perception believes of international holdings of “reserves”, but I would wager there is a rather large disconnect between it and how the international system actually works. This is more than just theoretical notions of banking in eurodollar shadows, but the pipelines that connect and cross the globe. Central banks do not have massive stores of [...]
There is more than one way to look at the emerging markets and frame the debate about what should or might be done. I think this quote from the Financial Times, however, falls outside the boundaries of reason: “So far we are still not seeing the impact of the currency devaluation we had last year,” said David Beker, economist with [...]
Earlier in January, despite the auspices of assurances from the Banco do Brasil, the Brazilian government auctioned its newest 10-year government bond (NTN-F) at a record high yield. Almost immediately there was an attempt to soften such a blow, as the Brazilian commentary network was filled with, “it wasn’t as bad as expected.” The “when issued” yield came out at [...]
Though we have passed through the event horizon on taper finally, it is still difficult to understate how much the threat of it upset the various settled mannerisms of credit and dollar markets this past summer. Though there is a degree of calm in appearance now, there are certainly more than a few hints of markets still enthralled by some [...]
In the wake of taper tightening, currency markets and credits everywhere around the world are adjusting pretty much as they had previously. While the Indian rupee remains stuck in a range, the Bank of India tried to ignite growth through “surprise” interest rate non-movements. Other markets have not been so fortunate, particularly Indonesia. While India soaked up much of the [...]
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