By the summer of 2018, there were already any number of economic warning signs over globally synchronized growth fading fast. Many if not most of them market-based, of course, but not all. In the realm of sentiment, for example, the Germans in particular had put their finger on the pulse of the global economy and found it suspiciously feeble, economic [...]
The incidences of what’s downright bizarre have curiously become more frequent. Sign of the times. Pick your realm or timetable, there’s so much going wrong while completely disconnected from the “official” description of, or explanation for, whatever. Along these lines, did the US VP just warn America’s children from Singapore that Santa Claus’ legendary trade will be delayed, perhaps canceled?Summer [...]
A tale of two retail industries. In the one, the well-known chip problem holding back what is already a monstrously robust (if artificial) sales environment. Automobile dealer lots are nearing empty and carmakers are unable (perhaps unwilling, too?) to produce near sufficient volumes to keep up let alone restock.This view of the situation, though, has clouded perspectives particularly as they [...]
You don’t hear about China’s “ghost cities” nearly as much anymore. Around 2012, thereabouts, suddenly social and regular medias alike were alive with pics of all sorts of empty buildings all around the vast urban Chinese landscapes. Unlike America’s Rust Belt, these spectral landmarks were brand new; built recently yet eerily unoccupied. Claimed to be a symbol of burgeoning asset [...]
Count retail sales (US) among the dead data. Like recent CPI’s and PPI’s, consumer spending on goods continues to be sky high – and yet markets (even stocks) don’t seem to care. For the month of June 2021, the Census Bureau believes total sales were up when compared to May, though not much as May’s estimate was revised lower. At [...]
These are not the numbers to put anyone’s (rational) mind at ease. China’s data dump wasn’t terrible, but it didn’t need to be in order to amplify concerns about the state of the global economy. What the inflationary case required of the Chinese government instead was unambiguous, inarguable acceleration more consistent with the idea its economy is somehow performing up [...]
Another day, another alarming piece of data delivered from China. Anyone looking for where the PBOC’s “surprise” RRR cut late last week is coming from, the Chinese car market provides yet another pretty stunning and consistent example. Together with other recent datapoints, as well as uniformly falling global bond yields, it’s more evidence for the growing very possibilities of a [...]
The FOMC’s “hawkish” dots for their June 2021 assessment weren’t an acknowledgement of recent inflation data in the US. That’s how many are characterizing the change, modest as it actually was. Inflation is about emotion in most places, especially when CPI’s and PCE Deflators, a healthy dose of producer prices, all seem to point to an overheating economy on the [...]
The FOMC held a meeting and that can only mean dots. These are the individual policymaker’s views on where the federal funds target range might end up down the road. The latest update for the June 2021 central bank conclave shows several more voting members projecting the first rate hikes to begin toward the end of next year, a supposedly [...]
Same stuff, different month. We can basically reprint both what was described yesterday about supply curves not keeping up with exaggerated demand as well as the past two months of commentary on Retail Sales plus Industrial Production each for the US. Quite on the nose, US demand for goods, anyway, is eroding if still artificially very high. Producers, on the [...]
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