Macro
Zerohedge
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“No Wall In Any Form”: Govt Shutdown Odds Explode Amid Trump-Schumer Standoff
With a potential government shutdown just days away, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) dug in on Sunday, telling Meet The Press that President Trump is "not going to get the wall in any form." Last Tuesday Trump, Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) clashed over Trump's $5 billion demand for border wall funding in an ...
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California Devastated Utility Proposes $2 Billion Rate Hike To Fund “Wildfire Safety”
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Trump Working On Extraditing “Coup-Plotting” Erdogan Foe Gulen, Turkish FM Claims
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The Supreme Court Judgement And Scotland’s Colonial Status
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The Bizarre Viral Story Of The Professor Who Hired Mercenaries To Rescue A Student From ISIS
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Psychoanalysing NATO: Schizophrenia
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Escobar: How The New Silk Roads Are Merging Into Greater Eurasia
The Capital Spectator
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US Financial Markets Stress Index Ticks Up To 2-1/2 Year High
An estimate of financial stress in US financial markets edged up last week to the highest level since April 2016, based on the St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index (STLFSI). Although the benchmark remains well below zero, which implies a below-average level of stress, the steady rise in recent months suggests that financial conditions are on a path of becoming less favorable for markets and the economy in 2019. STLFSI is compiled from 18...
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Macro Briefing: 14 December 2018
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Lehman’s Lessons
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Macro Briefing: 13 December 2018
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Mideast Stocks On Track As Top-Performing Region For 2018
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Macro Briefing: 12 December 2018
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Treasury Market’s Inflation Forecast Plunges
Marc Chandler
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Dollar Benefits from being Less Ugly
The US dollar rose against all the major and most of the emerging market currencies last week. The Dollar Index made a new marginal high for the year. Although US jobs growth disappointed in November and the flash Markit PMI and manufacturing output was weaker than expected, poor data abroad helped underpin the dollar by default. UK Prime Minister survived a challenge from within her party, but the way forward is not clear and is a source...
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FOMC Dominates Week Ahead Calendar
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Week Closing on a Disappointing Note
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May Survives but its Draghi’s Day
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Markets Calm on May Day
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Fragile Calm Threatens to Break Out
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Cool Video: Bloomberg Economic Discussion
Mish’s Global Economic
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Tether, a Crypto Supposedly Pegged to the US Dollar, Moves Into Crypto 4th Spot
[Tether](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tether_(cryptocurrency%29) is a controversial cryptocurrency with tokens issued by Tether Limited, which claims that each token issued is backed by one United States dollar though they may not necessarily be redeemed through the Tether platform. Tether is called a stablecoin because it is designed to always be worth $1.00. Tether Price Tether is supposedly pegged to the US dollar. In practice, it...
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Obamacare Fire Alarm: Federal District Judge in Texas Rules ACA Unconstitutional
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GDPNow Forecast Surges to 3.0% on Retail Sales, Nowcast Flat at 2.4%
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Core Group Retail Sales Jump 0.9% in Nov vs 0.2% Overall: Hurricane Distortions?
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Johnson and Johnson Slammed on Report it Knew its Baby Powder Contains Asbestos
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S&P 500: How Long Can This Go On?
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Cheap: The Most Requested Apartment Search Word in 2018
Federal Reserve FOMC
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Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, November 7-8, 2018
The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee on Thursday released the attached minutes of the Committee meeting held on November 7-8, 2018. The minutes for each regularly scheduled meeting of the Committee ordinarily are made available three weeks after the day of the policy decision and subsequently are published in the Board's Annual Report. The descriptions of economic and financial conditions contained in these minutes...
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Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement
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Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, September 25-26, 2018
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Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement
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Federal Reserve Board and Federal Open Market Committee release economic projections from the September 25-26 FOMC meeting
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Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, July 31-August 1, 2018
BK Asset Management
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Euro Hits Monthly Lows as France Contracts
Market Drivers December 14, 2018 French PMI turns contractionary Euro at fresh monthly lows Nikkei -2.02% Dax -1.16% Oil $52/bbl Gold $1238/oz. Europe and Asia: EZ PMI 51.3 vs. 52.8 North America: USD Retail Sales 8:30 A sea of red in capital markets today as risk-off flows drove Nikkei down by 2%, Dax down by 1% and took euro below the 1.1300 figure on very weak EZ Flash PMI data. The selling in risk started early after Chine reported horrid...
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Brexit Rests on Backstop
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Can May Salvage the Brexit Deal?
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In FX – No Place to Hide
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FX Risk Aversion Intensifies with NFPs
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US Dollar Hit by Convergence of Negative News
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Will US Data Kneecap the Dollar?
Calculated Risk
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Sacramento Housing in November: Sales Down 7% YoY, Active Inventory up 23% YoY
From SacRealtor.org: November 2018 Statistics – Sacramento Housing Market – Single Family Homes, Median sales price increases, sales volume dropsNovember closed with 1,304 sales, a 9.3% decrease from the 1,413 sales of September. Compared to the same month last year (1,396), the current figure is down 6.6%. Of the 1,304 sales this month, 180 (13.8%) used cash financing, 791 (60.7%) used conventional, 225 (17.3%) used FHA, 76 (5.8%) used VA and...
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Schedule for Week of December 16, 2018
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Oil Rigs Declined Slightly, More Expected
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By Request, and Just For Fun: Stock Market as Barometer of Policy Success
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Q4 GDP Forecasts: High 2s
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Industrial Production Increased 0.6% in November
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Retail Sales increased 0.2% in November
Epsilon Theory
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Common Knowledge or Fortune?
These strange tables below come from an unusual and fiendishly tricky online trivia competition in which both Ben and I participate. The game arranges players into brackets and pits them head-to-head on a weekly basis. Everyone answers the same six questions, but importantly, each player determines how many points each question will be worth for his opponent. In other words, success in the game is not just about answering correctly, but about...
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In the Trenches: Bridge Out?
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Basically a Snake Don’t Have Parts
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Introduction to ET Professional
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You Don’t Have to Dance Every Dance
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ET Live @ 2PM ET 12.11.2018
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The ET Interviews: Banking the Unbankable
Charles Hugh Smith
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Neofeudalism Isn’t a Flaw of the System–It’s the System Working Perfectly
Fakery is always precarious: the truth about the asymmetries of power might slip out and spread like wildfire. I've been writing about neofeudalism and its cousin neocolonialism for seven years: 500 Million Debt-Serfs: The European Union Is a Neo-Feudal Kleptocracy (July 22, 2011) The E.U., Neofeudalism and the Neocolonial-Financialization Model (May 24, 2012) The basic idea here is the socio-economic-political system is structured such...
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France in a Nutshell: “The Government Stopped Listening to the People 20 Years Ago”
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The Conflicting Forces of Modernism: Kafka and Kierkegaard
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Are We in a Recession Already?
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The View from the Trenches of the Alternative Media
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Truth Is What We Hide, Self-Serving Cover Stories Are What We Sell
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America Needs a New National Strategy
Hale Stewart: Bonddad Blog
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Weekly Indicators for December 10 -14 at Seeking Alpha
- by New Deal democratMy Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.A decline in mortgage rates unsurprisingly appears to have caused a rush in applications to lock in those rates. Plus one more anomaly ....
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Real retail sales very positive; industrial production decent
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A note on initial jobless claims
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Real wage growth: November 2018 update
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The October JOLTS report: very good employment market continues, just below best levels
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Scenes from the November Jobs Report
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Weekly Indicators for December 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha
J. W. Mason: SLACK WIRE
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Strange Defeat
Anyone who found something useful or provoking in my Jacobin piece on the state of economics might also be interested in this 2013 article by me and Arjun Jayadev, “Strange Defeat: How Austerity Economics Lost All the Intellectual Battles and Still WOn the War.” It covers a good deal of the same ground, a bit more systematically but without the effort to find the usable stuff in mainstream macro that I made in the more recent piece. Perhaps...
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In Jacobin: A Demystifying Decade for Economics
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How to Read a Regression
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Now Playing Everywhere
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Acquisitions as Corporate Money Hose
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New Piece on MMT
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Lecture Notes for Research Methods
Constantin Gurdgiev: True Economics
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8/12/18: Back to the 1950s: Tracing Out 25 Years of the Credit Bubble
While the current cycle of declining interest rates has been running for at least 25 years, the most recent iteration of the period has been exceptionally benign. Since the end of the global financial crisis, Corporate and, to a greater extent Government, borrowing costs have run at the levels close to, or even below, those observed in the 1950s-1960s. Since 2002-2003, FFR, on average, has been below the risk premium on lending to the...
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8/12/18: Shares Buybacks Hit Diminishing Marginal Returns
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7/12/18: Seeking Alpha Market Outlook features a recent blogpost
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6/12/18: Are Younger Americans More Comfortable With a Multipolar World?
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6/12/18: When it comes to geopolitical & socio-economic anxiety, Europe’s problem is European
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5/12/18: Bitcoin: Sell-off is a structural break to the downside of the already negative trend
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5/12/18: BRIC PMIs for November: A Moderate Pick Up in Growth
Alhambra Investment Partners
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The Relevant Word Is ‘Decline’
The English language headline for China’s National Bureau of Statistics’ press release on November 2018’s Big 3 was, National Economy Maintained Stable and Sound Momentum of Development in November. For those who, as noted yesterday, are wishing China’s economy bad news so as to lead to the supposed good news of a coordinated “stimulus” response this was itself a bad news/good news situation. If the Communist State Council is to be flustered...
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Just In Time For The Circus
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Retail Sales, The More Immediate Problem
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Sometimes Bad News Is Just Right
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The End of QE Will Always Devolve Into This Sort of Incoherent Mess
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Curious Rush To Combine German Banks
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Keynes Was Right, The More Evil of the Two
Dash of Insight
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Boost Your Toyota Dividend Yield
Retirees seek reasonable, consistent yield without a threat to the nest egg. I am continuing my series on my favorite method for achieving this objective. While this is not investment advice for any specific reader, I hope that some will find it both interesting and useful. Introduction The program, simply described, consists of buying a good dividend stock and selling a call against the position. While there are many dividend programs and...
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Boost Your Toyota Dividend Yield
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Stock Exchange: Are You Selling The Rips Or Buying The Dips?
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Weighing the Week Ahead: Ready for Your Holiday Shopping?
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Stock Exchange: More Unnerving Face-Rippers Ahead?
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China/US Trade – Finding a Signal Amidst the Noise
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Weighing the Week Ahead: So Much News, So Little Time
Curious Cat
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An Inverted Yield Curve Predicts Recessions in the USA
When 2 year US government bonds yield more than the 10 year US government bonds a recession is likely to appear soon. This chart shows why this is seen as such a reliable predictor. The chart shows the 10 year yield minus the 2 year yield. So when the value falls below 0 that means the 2 year yield is higher. Each time that happened, since 1988, a recession has followed (the grey shaded areas in the chart). Do note that there were very...
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Real Estate Investing: Amazon’s Regional Office in Arlington, Virginia
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China’s Investments in Africa
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10 Stocks for 10 Years (2018 version)
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Improvements to Credit Collection Requirements Have Had an Positive Impact
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Factfulness – An Extremely Valuable Book
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USA Household Debt Jumps to Record $13.15 Trillion
Center for Economic and Policy Research
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The Impact of OPEC on Climate Change
It is accepted that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a cartel that restrains oil production and keeps prices higher than they would otherwise be. Indeed, this is the premise behind the “OPEC Accountability Act of 2018” in the US Senate. This bill would address high and rising oil prices by trying ...
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Labor Market Policy Research Reports, November 2018
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How Goldman Sachs Still Holds Sway at SEC
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Building An Agency Tracker to Monitor Government Appointments
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Want Transparent Government? Answer These Questions
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Jobs, Pensions Lost in Sears Bankruptcy, but Hedge Fund King Gets Paid
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Labor Market Policy Research Reports, October 2018
Economic Populist
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2nd Quarter GDP Up 4.1% Despite Largest Inventory Contraction Since 2009
The Advance Estimate of 2nd Quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis released on Friday included changes in definitions, in classifications, and in the presentation of the components of GDP, as well as an annual and a comprehensive (or benchmark) revision of the national income and product accounts going back to 1929, ie, from the beginning of that measure of our economic history. Also with this benchmark revision, the reference year...
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Construction contribution to Q1 GDP under-reported by 47 basis points, despite 1.7% drop in March
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OPEC’s February Oil Market Report showed that the global oil glut is growing again
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December Trade Deficit Up 5.3% on Higher Imports of Cellphones, Drugs and Cars
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One cold snap uses 11.5% of US natural gas supplies; 8 more weeks like that and our gas storage will be totally empty
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November Personal Spending Up 0.6%, Two Months PCE Adds 171 Basis Points to Q4 GDP
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Consumer Prices Rose 0.4% in November on Higher Energy Costs
Naked Capitalism
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War on Cash: State and City Governments Push Back
By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans. Earlier this month, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on some modest good news in the war on cash, with passage of a New Jersey bill that would ban cashless stores in the state: The measure, which can now go before the full state Senate, would require all brick-and-mortar retailers to accept cash,...
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Links 12/16/18
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Major Health Study Shows Benefits of Combating Climate Change
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Links 12/15/18
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What the US Could Learn from Thailand About Health Care Coverage
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Writers Silenced by Surveillance: Self-Censorship in the Age of Big Data
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2:00PM Water Cooler 12/14/2018
Lance Roberts RIA
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Is The Market On The Naughty List? 12-14-18
Is The Market On The “Naughty” List Lack Of Experience Daily, Weekly, Monthly View Sector & Market Analysis 401k Plan Manager Follow Us On: Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, Sound Cloud, Seeking Alpha Important Note: Over the next couple of weeks, the newsletter will most likely be just a short note updating you on market action and portfolio positioning due to travel schedule and moving issues. Of course, as always, if you have any questions...
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Weekend Reading: Did The Grinch Steal The Christmas Rally?
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The Bond Rally Was No Surprise
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3-Really Big Lies Of Financial Advisors
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What Caused Chairman Powell To Flinch
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Robert Shiller: Worried About Housing Again
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Technically Speaking: “Will Santa Visit Broad & Wall?”
Doug Short Advisor Perspectives
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S&P 500 Snapshot: A Week of Corrections
[unable to retrieve full-text content] The S&P 500 closed Friday with a correction of 11.3%. The index spent three out of the five days with a correction and the other two were near corrections. Gains have been wiped out for the year and the index is down 3.6% YTD.
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The Big Four Economic Indicators: November Real Retail Sales
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ECRI Weekly Leading Index Update: “Inflation Cycles Down as Fed Stays Starstruck”
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The Big Four Economic Indicators: Industrial Production Up 0.6% in November, New High
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November Retail Sales: Up 0.2% MoM
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The Philly Fed ADS Business Conditions Index Update
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Weekly Unemployment Claims: Down 27K, Surprises Forecast
The Barrel Blog
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Funding the main challenge for Indian steel growth
India’s steel production is expected to almost double by 2025 and M&A activity could result in a leaner industry, but headwinds remain, including tight credit lines and exposure to raw material prices. S&P Global Platts spent a week in India in November, mainly to host our Steel Markets Asia conference in Mumbai, but also to meet with companies and visit operations. There was plenty of positivity about the state of the local steel...
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Scrubbers under scrutiny by maritime industry as IMO 2020 nears
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Tellurian-Vitol LNG deal signals shifting balance of power
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In the LOOP: Three VLCCs depart LOOP for India, South Korea
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Qatar’s OPEC exit could backfire on LNG superpower
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Insight: Nigeria’s oil sector looks for sweet spot amid power struggles
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Insight: Politics, not economics, drives decision-making in European gas
Eurostat News Releases
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Annual growth in labour costs at 2.5% in euro area
Download PDF
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Euro area job vacancy rate at 2.1%
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Cloud computing services used by more than one out of four enterprises in the EU
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Consumption per capita varied between 54% and 132% of the EU average
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Share of EU GDP spent on social protection slightly down
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Industrial production up by 0.2% in both euro area and EU28
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More than 1 in 5 self-employed in the EU had seized a suitable opportunity to run their own business
Commodity Blog
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Commodities Technical Analysis, December 17th — December 21st
The technical analysis, that includes the indicators’ data and major pivot points for WTI Oil, Gold, Silver, Copper, and Natural Gas in continous charts as of December 16th, 2018: Crude Oil Indicators Moving Averages RSI Parabolic SAR CCI Short Neutral Short Neutral Floor pivot points 3rd Sup 2nd Sup 1st Sup Pivot 1st Res 2nd Res 3rd Res 46.98 48.66 49.86 51.54 52.74 54.42 55.62 Woodie’s pivot points 2nd Sup 1st Sup...
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Crude Oil Falls Further Even as US Drillers Reduce Number of Oil Rigs
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Gold Falls, Poised for a Weekly Loss on Rallying Greenback
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Commodities Trade in Red During Friday’s Session
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Natural Gas Rises As Weekly Supplies Fall
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Oil Gains on Second Straight Drop in Crude Inventories
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Crude Oil Gains as Russia Announces Production Cuts
BEA
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Gross Domestic Product by County, Prototype Estimates, 2012-2015
Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released prototype statistics for gross domestic product (GDP) by county for 2012-2015. Combined with BEA's county estimates of personal income, GDP by county offers a more complete picture of local area economic conditions. In conjunction with their release, BEA is requesting feedback and comments on these prototype statistics to assist in improving their quality, reliability and usefulness. "This...
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U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, October 2018
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Personal Income and Outlays, October 2018
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Gross Domestic Product, 3rd quarter 2018 (second estimate): Corporate Profits, 3rd quarter 2018 (preliminary estimate)
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Local Area Personal Income, 2017
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Gross Domestic Product by State, 2nd quarter 2018
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Gross Domestic Product for Guam, 2017
Humble student of the markets
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2019 preview: Winter is coming
Preface: Explaining our market timing modelsWe maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The “Ultimate Market Timing Model” is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade. The Trend Model is an asset allocation model which applies trend following principles based on the...
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A Dow Theory sell signal?
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Is the Powell Put coming into play?
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A 2015 or 2011 style hiccup, or something worse?
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Apple: The new Rorschach test
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A Thanksgiving Week sector review
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What is Mr. Market saying about Powell’s “global slowdown”?
Soberlook
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Why Won’t the Fed Raise Rates?
Guest post by Norman Mogil When the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets in the coming week, there will be pressure from various quarters to raise the federal funds rate. Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan, has stated blankly “Let’s just raise rates." Furthermore, he has said a quarter point is just a “drop in the bucket." We know where the big money banks stand on the issue. They need higher rates to achieve...
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The ECB’s corporate bond purchase programme takes shape
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What is Behind the Surge in the Corporate Debt
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The Big Disconnect in the Pension Industry
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The Looming Shortage in Government Bonds
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What the Bond Market is Telling Investors
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Unconventional Policies and Their Effects on Financial Markets
The Short Side of Long
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Here’s What is Happening in the Economy Right Now
[embedded content]Jordan Roy-Byrne: Welcome back to The Atlas Investor podcast with Tiho Brkan. Thank you so much for tuning in today for episode number 22, Tiho, and in this episode, I know you want to cover the global economic situation and what’s going on. Please tell us why you think it’s important to cover that right now.Tiho Brkan: Hello, everybody. Hello, Jordan. I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for having me on for another podcast....
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Gold’s Utility as Portfolio Diversifier
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What the Emerging Markets Currency Crisis Means for Your Portfolio
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Where to Invest Your Money Today (Part 2 of 2)
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Where to Invest Your Money Today (Part 1 of 2)
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Tiho’s Analysis & Immediate Outlook for Stocks, Bonds & US Dollar
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Are Bond Yields Headed for a Major Breakout?
Global Macro Monitor
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World (War I) Series
This is so cool…more than baseball heroes! Hank Gowdy and men from the 116th Infantry playing ball behind the front lines in France, August 1918. NARA. @OTBaseballPhoto pic.twitter.com/78VN6MPtt1 — Jeff Nichols (@backwards_river) December 15, 2018
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Ten Good Weekend Reads
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Global Risk Monitor – December 14
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ETF Sector Performance – December 14
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Green growth
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The Mechanics Of Happiness
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Inflation With A Draghi Tatoo?
Dr. Ed Yardeni
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Less Inflation Gives Fed Room to Pause
The Fed made lots of headlines last week. Evidence mounted that following another likely rate hike at the FOMC meeting on December 18-19, the monetary policy committee might pause during the first half of next year to reevaluate the course of monetary policy. Not as widely noticed last week was that inflationary pressures may be ebbing, which would also argue for a pause. Consider the following: (1) PCED. While the labor market continues to...
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Analysts Still (Too) High on S&P 500 Earnings
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Fed’s R-Star Is A Black Hole
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Fed’s Restrictive Chatter Rattles Stocks
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Trump’s Poison Pills for China
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China’s Syndromes
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Bear Traps for Stocks?