As the manufacturing recession becomes more and more unassailable (and I mean that in more than one way), the fact that it still shows no end or let up suggests still greater difficulty beyond manufacturing. As feedback loops become more established and robust, and thus convince more and more non-manufacturing firms to adjust instead of waiting out for Janet Yellen’s [...]
The GDP statistics for Brazil as of Q3 2015 were worse than expected in every way imaginable. Real GDP fell 4.5% Y/Y, which is nearly double the worst quarter Brazil experienced during the Great Recession. Household spending fell 1.7%, the third consecutive quarter of contraction, while fixed investment declined an astounding 15%. That was the sixth straight reduction and the [...]
For the tenth straight week, dating back to the week just before the global liquidations in August, reported domestic crude inventories increased. At 489.4 million barrels, the current level of oil stock (excluding the SPR) is only slightly less than the record high of 490.9 million barrels reached the week of April 24. “Transitory” is dead. The increase in oil [...]
Despite everything that happened in July and August throughout the financial world, there remained a tendency to simply dismiss it as anomalous. That was curious in and of itself, but that the global liquidations then were not isolated but rather the latest in a continuing string of “odd” events strains such determined dimness. We have arrived at a point in [...]
The initial estimates for Black Friday spending are pretty grim; you can make that interpretation based only on the press releases themselves as neither of the words “strong” or “robust” appear in them. According to ShopperTrak, actual sales (mall sales) on Black Friday itself were up almost 15% from last year but only because there was a clear revulsion against [...]
On December 11, 2014, spot WTI closed at $60.01, down sharply from $76.52 the week before that Thanksgiving. In the space of only a few weeks, oil prices had collapsed far more than anyone thought possible; and yet there was very little urgency to the outcome. Economists, in particular, parroted throughout the media, were quick to assert both a supply [...]
Durable goods orders and shipments were estimated still consistent with the depressive environment that has “unexpectedly” lingered for the whole of 2015. Year-over-year, new orders for durable goods fell 4.13% while shipments contracted by 3.74%. That is the ninth straight decline in orders and the fourth in shipments (and five out of the last six months). The 6-month averages in [...]
If China is struggling with the various facets of the interconnected nature of eurodollar function, then we don’t have to go far to see that in almost perfect clarity. By many accounts, funding and liquidity remain highly disturbed and becoming more uniformly so. From gold to francs to copper to junk debt, pricing reflects more so a combined economic and [...]
The only piece of the GDP revision to note is that the BEA is still having great difficulty estimating inventory. That isn’t surprising since businesses in this area are behaving far different than any expectation, even factoring the difficulty of the “recovery” environment. That leaves instead only Janet Yellen’s continuous pleading about the surge in consumer spending that never seems [...]
In April 2008, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was miffed. The country’s central bank governor, Dr. Gideon Gono, produced its first quarter monetary policy statement by reminding anyone who might read it that his actions were being duplicated the world over. Apparently still smarting over criticism by his central bank peers, Dr. Gono, an honorary degree, was more disturbed by [...]
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