The BLS reported that the rate of hiring in the US continues to be sluggish and sideways. Total hiring across the labor market was estimated to be 5.08 million (SA) in September, down from August and the second slowest rate this year. Since first surpassing 5 million back in September 2014, the overall pace of employer engagement has been largely [...]
When I first started some years ago, the guy I worked for told me to prepare myself because this business is so often just stupid. It does make sense given the high stakes and pressure, where everybody is literally trying to outsmart everybody else every minute of every day. And those kinds of conditions, variable as they are, lead to [...]
The JOLTS series is, in my view, a second tier data set made so by its computational connections to the CES. The Job Openings portion I believe has proven over the past few years why it is less reliable, surging so far out of character that it is all alone in suggesting huge economic positivity that even the main BLS [...]
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury closed at around 1.68% today, but judging by the haughty commentary surrounding global bond markets you would be forgiven if you thought it was 2.68%. Since the low in July around 1.37%, that +30 bps apparently seems like it to many people. Going back to the end of QE2, the idea that rates [...]
In all honesty, I could start almost any piece I write with the phrase “economists are stumped.” It has become something of a baseline where there is some element or condition of the global economy that doesn’t make sense to them. The latest update in JOLTS for July continues to be faithful to the seeming contradiction. By view of the [...]
The massive wildfires in Alberta earlier this year had a tremendously negative effect upon not just the oil sector but all of Canada. Not surprisingly, Canadian GDP released today was abysmal. Falling 1.6% in Q2, that was the worst quarter since 2009. Fortunately for the Bank of Canada who had been “stimulating” again since last July when it cut the [...]
Going back to Japan for a third time today (it is more than deserved), at least in the setup, the Financial Times on August 1 astutely picked up what the rest of the mainstream media missed about the last BoJ policy moves. They correctly judged the “dollar” intentions, but also that it wasn’t nearly enough, as I wrote earlier. However, nobody [...]
On March 9, 2016, front month trading for Japanese government bond (JGB) futures was halted at 12:32 pm Tokyo time. Selling had become intense, tripping the Osaka Exchange’s dynamic circuit breaker. The total length of the halt was just 30 seconds, but fingers were already being pointed in the direction of the BoJ. More than four months later, on July [...]
At this point, maybe it’s more like a train or car wreck whose shocking carnage compels you to keep staring at it. I still think there is, however, relevant information in IBM’s ongoing crash though I can’t deny the degree of fascination with it as almost theater. The company yesterday reported its 17th consecutive quarter of shriveling. Like a car [...]
Last week, the National Bureau of Statistics in China released what seemed like import levels that suggested “stimulus” was finally paying off and the economy had struck bottom. Among these more glowing results was an absolute surge in the importation of oil, which was blindly parroted as if Chinese demand due to the expected economic revival were the cause. Instead, [...]
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