A big reason why Chinese banks struggled yesterday in their daily bid for “dollars” (CNY DOWN) was the relatively unchanged economic statistics for November. Many in the media have tried to frame China’s economic situation in 2016 as if stabilizing were a positive outcome. Markets, especially funding markets, aren’t so enthused about the prospects for “weak but not getting weaker.” [...]
Where are we in history when the avowed Socialist (capital “S”) from Vermont is the only voice of reason for the Democratic Party in the aftermath of last week’s election? I don’t intend to make this some kind of political screed against one party or the other; I am on record numerous times claiming the America we live in of [...]
There are many facets to gold, which is as it should be. In trying to discern what ones are moving prices at any given moment, the complexities and really its duality can cloud the matter, often greatly. From the post-1971 traditional perspective, it is believed the preeminent inflation hedge. In financial terms, it is sensitive to shifts in relative interest [...]
The LMCI was positive in October for the third time in the past five months. Revisions are to be expected in any statistic, but more so with the Fed’s factor model by its construction where it has to predict certain parts of its nineteen inputs. Not all those statistics are readily available when it is published and many undergo benchmark [...]
As if anyone needed any proof as to why economics needs to be so thoroughly debunked, it was on display again today. I am talking about Rome over Carthage defeat, where the textbooks of Economics (capital “E”) should be so salted and devastated in the same manner in which the Romans banished the Carthaginians forever to nothing but history. Economics [...]
Throughout the 1990’s, calculated productivity in the US skyrocketed in what was taken then as a sign of monetary and economic genius, the “maestro” as it was. By the incomplete measures we have, that certainly seemed to be a plausible case. Starting in 1997, the BLS’s first measure for economic productivity, output per hour, surged. The consequence of that productivity [...]
The payroll report disappointed again, especially since October has in the past marked the end of seasonal weakness. Last year the headline for the Establishment Survey followed the usual summer doldrums: July +277k, Aug +150k, Sept +149k, and October 2015 +295k. This year, the sequence has been (with revisions): July +252k, Aug +176k, Sept +191k, and October 2016 +161k. To [...]
If we were to accurately describe the economy right now, it would be weak – but not getting weaker. I believe that is the product of the “dollar”, or lack of further “dollar” intrusion. Combined with the usual seasonal changes earlier in the year, the nervous calm of the past almost eight months has had a limited but nonetheless soothing [...]
A strong cohort of global PMI’s has cheered today pretty much everyone, from economists to the media and anyone else in between. China’s official Manufacturing PMI was calculated at 51.2 in October, the highest level since July 2014, up seemingly significantly from the 49.9 just three months ago this July. In the United States, the ISM Manufacturing rose again to [...]
For many, it was just too good. In early 2013, gold prices were slammed – twice. Just after QE3 was announced, gold had moved back up to almost $1,800 per ounce as it “should” have, reflecting all that future “money printing.” Rather than keep going, however, gold started to drop and then drop some more so that by the time [...]
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