On April 1, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that its official PMI for the manufacturing sector had burst back above 50 for the first time since July 2015 before all the “global turmoil.” The NBS didn’t actually use the word “burst”, of course, as they simply reported the figure and economists and the media did the rest. It seemed [...]
Oil prices are like an unfolding train wreck, as it is nearly impossible to look away now. Day after day, not only are spot prices down but the entire WTI curve is now moving lower in almost perfect unison. Prices have dropped six days in a row, more than $4, and at just above $41 seems a much different world [...]
Last July, the US Treasury Department finally issued its official report detailing its account of what happened on October 15, 2014. The statement was co-authored by staff at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, FRBNY, the SEC, and CFTC, as if the government were going overboard trying to prove its word the end of the matter. As [...]
It isn’t just that oil prices are falling, that is only one dimension of the full oil spectrum concentrating in the spot market. The more interesting and important information is contained within the whole WTI futures curve. As “dollar” funding pressure has built up since the front month peak on June 8, it has steepened the curve into deeper contango; [...]
Oil prices fell again today and it seems that gasoline is now on everyone’s mind. As noted last week, I don’t think that is the reason for the price action except in that it tells a very different story than the one in the media about “stimulus” hope. The significance of crude and gasoline is the difference in narratives and [...]
With no clear direction from any of the Asian influences, it isn’t surprising to see more listlessness in everything from stocks to bonds. The Dow was up, the NASDAQ down, and the S&P 500 somewhere in between. The 10-year UST that had looked primed for receding back into the 1.60’s (for yield) bounced back to around 1.55% and steady at [...]
The Chinese yuan fell again in Monday Asian trading, breaking below 6.70 for the first time. Not surprisingly, the tone to broad early trading in Europe and the US was slightly negative on what would be negative “dollar” factors. I have surmised for some time that Japanese banks have been the primary “dollar” supply for Chinese “dollar” needs, so it [...]
In August 2014, Chinese industrial production was estimated to have slowed sharply from +9.0% that July to just 6.9%. Consensus at the time expected only a minor variation, an insignificant change to +8.8%. Chinese industrial statistics had suggested some minor (relatively speaking) weakness at the start of the year before rebounding throughout the spring in what is now, in the [...]
On June 3, the May payroll report was released shocking convention by its “unexpected” weakness. It was, and so far remains, the worst headline number since 2009. Because the suggestion of a far weaker labor market than policymakers have been claiming undermined their whole economic narrative, “markets” immediately reversed course and bid as if there would be no rate hikes [...]
The inconsistency or unevenness of the economic data is a huge part of the problem. The world wants to move in nice, clean straight lines and nowhere is that more of an assumption than economics. There is some allowance for variation but that is always expected to be minimal. The past four years or so just haven’t seen much deference [...]
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