China’s official reported reserves rose in March for the first time in five months. Though reserves had fallen to barely $3.2 trillion in February, that was down just $28.6 billion from January, being already hailed as a success and a step in the right direction since that was less than a third of the shocking decline in January (-$99.5 billion). [...]
It’s never a good sign when bank stocks are leading any retreat, but that is especially the case given recent events when several high profile banks were at the epicenter of early 2016’s liquidation rerun. As usual, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse are the firms most mentioned and among those most disfavored at these times. The media struggles to find [...]
A few weeks back, on March 18, the Japanese government bond market was hit with a “buying panic” of some noteworthy proportion. Yields all across the curve dropped, which takes some doing since yields were already at that point mostly negative. Common sense forces any sane person to wonder if sanity itself remains relevant to global finance: That raises the [...]
US trade statistics for February improved in both exports and imports, but there are questions as to the reason for the reverse and whether it is actually meaningful. After abysmal performance in every segment and category in January, there was some give back in February including positive numbers in some places. That suggests that January’s trade activity might have been [...]
Stimulus always works because every uptick and improvement is attributed to it no matter how small and ultimately inconsequential. That has been the history of the past four years now, as the slowdown has not come at a steady pace. Nothing goes in a straight line except mainstream extrapolations of every positive variation. And when whatever indication is lower and [...]
The “first” part of the TIC data update for January was relatively straightforward, especially since the scale of the net transaction adjustments in both December and January really did match what happened in January (crossing into February). The Treasury Department’s estimate for foreign holdings of US dollar assets were nothing short of remarkable in all the ways that were expected [...]
As the indications of hitting a cyclical turn multiply against the steady and alarming negative trend baseline background, there is more clarity on how what looks like an unrelenting slowdown had not yet morphed into the traditional recession setting (the “V”). For the most part, it appears as if the business or corporate sector has absorbed the negative pressures not [...]
The fundamentals for crude oil continue to be atrocious. Production remains relatively stable if slightly reduced, which is about the only factor in favor of oil prices since the February 11 low. On the other side of the ledger, you don’t hear as much about how it’s all oil supply anymore other than the occasional reference to a “glut” that [...]
By April last year, it had become clear that conditions in China were heading into dangerous territory. Even though most mainstream attention was fixed on the then-still growing stock bubble, there was so much that was wrong almost everywhere else. The economy would not stop slowing, and indeed still has not. The financial system was worse, so much so that [...]
Oil prices remain ebullient, relatively, compared to the dismal start to the year. Everything else, it seems, is driven by that background which means “dollar.” In that respect, we look to China or at least the Asian version of the “dollar” for guidance on triangulating funding conditions and future potential positioning. The CNY exchange is still within the post-Golden Week [...]
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