There can be no mistaking that Chinese stocks are in a bubble. Since November 21, the Shanghai SSE Composite index has risen more than 100%. Going back to July 22, the gain is nearly 145%. Those dates are not random coincidence, as they mark specific points of PBOC activity. The stock bubble in China is certainly a monetary affair, but [...]
The estimates for home construction in May were pretty much as expected except for one single data point. The calculation for new permits in the multi-family segment jumped by 53.5% year-over-year, completely out of character with everything else. Given that fact, it seems far more likely that the permits estimate is an outlier or artifact of even expected variation. That [...]
Gap announced another round of store closings, about 175 this time which is a significant chunk of its once-leading asset base. The company’s struggles aren’t new, having closed 200 stores only back in 2011. Since Gap was one of the first businesses to sign on for a higher wage base, you have to wonder how much of that was simple [...]
While the latest business inventory estimates are not yet updated for May, only through April, there is still a great deal of consistency provided by the top to bottom shifts in the economic supply chain. It usually takes an inventory build of tremendous disproportion to trigger the kinds of cutbacks and downstream negative pressures that amount to a recession. The [...]
At his last news conference on June 3, ECB chief Mario Draghi issued his list of successes so far with QE in Europe. The program was only announced four and a half months ago, being operational only for two, but he was positive that it was already having its intended effects. "Our monetary policy measures have contributed to a broad-based [...]
While the recovery narrative received a boost from only the seasonally adjusted retail sales data this week, the rest of the domestic economy, including and especially unadjusted retail sales, is still being marked down. First, the World Bank reduced its estimates for global growth to 2.8%, meaning that the promised annual recovery is now put off yet another year. Further, [...]
With every piece of “unexpected” weak data from China, the calls for more “stimulus” grow louder and more desperate. And still the PBOC sits on the sidelines with only minor adjustments. The latest of those has been what amounts to a muni swap, with banks eligible to pledge municipal government debt as collateral in repurchase operations, SLF’s, MLF’s and even [...]
The Agence France Trésor of the French government reported on May 7 that its bond auction of Obligations Assimilables du Trésor (OAT) across three maturities was lightly subscribed. That wasn’t their assessment, of course, as the government simply reports the figures and the credit market makes value judgments. The October 2023’s were bid-to-cover of only 1.58; the May 2025’s were [...]
It is exceedingly difficult these days to detect where finance ends and the economy begins. That was intended, of course, as it was believed that greater intrusiveness on the part of the financial ends were consistent with greater, and better, economic control. Certain strains of economics have been obsessed since the dawn of the discipline with finding “optimal” outcomes. More [...]
The perfect payroll report seems to have set off an angry wholesale market. While there was some indication of disorder prior to today, eurodollars in particular were sold once the Establishment Survey made it even more uncomfortable for Yellen’s position. Whereas the eurodollar curve had been unusually stable throughout May, it has been a different story in June. Economy or [...]
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