The further we get down the calendar away from China’s second biannual Golden Week the clearer the “dollar’s” influence on crude oil becomes, at least in the shorter maturities (and spot price). As usual, the “dollar” creates far more volatility at the front end than the back, where the longer maturities (recognizing more thinly traded months) tend toward economic considerations. [...]
The BLS published its updated JOLTS figures for August last week, and while most commentary continues to focus on the ephemeral Job Openings category it shouldn’t. Though Job Openings declined sharply by just about 300,000 in the current estimate (from a slight downward revision of July) it still rates as completely out of alignment with the rest of the JOLTS [...]
Earlier this year, not unlike China’s monthly variation, US manufacturing appeared to be shaking off the third straight extra-cold winter. By count of the ISM Manufacturing PMI, the sector was determined (by conventional assessment) to be weak but solid and forward. That rebound contributed to both the dominant recovery idea (anything down is anomaly) as well as Yellen’s “transitory” admonishments. [...]
Industrial production fell again in September, seasonally-adjusted month-over-month, for the eighth time out of nine months so far this year. Year-over-year IP was barely positive, at just +0.4%. The last time output growth was so stagnant (on the way down) was March 2008! It has become exceedingly difficult to assign this trend some temporary designation or as if it was [...]
Given the rising concerns about the state of the US economy, and not just “overseas” problems, most commentary about it believes that a reduced chance in Federal Reserve action is driving most of asset prices and markets. Data today in the PPI (US & China, closely linked) and US retail sales were described to that effect. That contributed to the [...]
The US Producer Price Index declined 0.5% month-over-month in September, much farther than the 0.2% drop expected by economists (statisticians, really). With retail sales providing little positive emphasis even among the large segment of commentary focused exclusively on the monthly variation rather than the intense consequence of wider context, the idea that the Fed will confirm the final stage of [...]
The problem with using GDP as the primary means of economic accounting is its very nature. By attempting both comprehensiveness and precision, the resulting calculation is an agglomeration of various methods and sources, many of which are quite dynamic apart from static regressions. By that construction alone, GDP is susceptible to high degrees of kurtosis where assumptions find little. In [...]
Unsure what to make of the renewed disaster in Chinese trade figures, there has been renewed emphasis on China being China. Almost every media story about the 20% collapse in imports references an assumed attempt by China to transform out of exports and into a consumer-driven economy without reconciling how or why that has so obviously and spectacularly failed. Nor [...]
You wouldn’t know it from stock trading or commodities, but when China reopened after its latest Golden Week holiday there was an obvious effect. Stocks have continued to surge while commodities overall have had a good week (copper up another $0.07 today, with WTI at about $50). Inside the money markets, however, China’s open was met with far less enthusiasm, [...]
Most people would look at a 40-month deviation as being rationally altering, maybe even something so permanent. The Fed, on the other hand, along with economists, have convinced themselves that somehow three and a half years is but a temporary detour. And so monetary policy and the recovery outlook itself are supposed to somehow straddle that inconvenience while still emitting [...]
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