May 13, 2021
Last Friday brought the biggest monthly under-performance of U.S. jobs relative to analyst expectations, and yesterday’s consumer price report crushed market forecasts. Instead of monthly and yearly rises of 0.2% and 3.6%, the total CPI jumped 0.8% on month and to a 151-month year-on-year high of 4.2%. Even worse, core CPI recorded its largest monthly […] Read Article
May 7, 2021
Central Banks: Monetary policies will be reviewed by central banks in Serbia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Romania and the Philippines. NY Fed President Williams, Bank of England Governor Bailey, and Bank of Canada Governor Macklem are among the central bankers who will be speaking publicly. A summary of the latest BOJ Board meeting and ECB Governing […] Read Article
April 28, 2021
Nothing remarkable emerged from the Federal Reserve today. Monetary policy settings were not changed. The fed funds interest rate target of 0-0.25% was kept, and and so were the amounts of Treasury securities and MBS that the central bank will buy each month. Forward guidance was likewise retained as it’s been. Officials need to see […] Read Article
May 7, 2021
A net 266k non-farm jobs were added in April, more than 700k less than predicted. The 144.3 million level of employment remains nearly 50 million below the extended trendline of jobs growth occurring in the two decades between end-1979 and Y2K. Fed officials are right to believe that America is still far from what used […] Read Article
May 12, 2021
Equity markets remain vulnerable to fears that higher inflation will compel central banks to raise interest rates sooner than forward guidance has been suggesting. Markets closed down today by 4.1% in Taiwan, 1.6% in Japan, 1.5% in South Korea, and 0.7% in Singapore and Australia. U.S. stock futures are somewhat lower, too. Share prices recovered […] More
May 11, 2021
A sampling of Asian stock markets suffered loses Tuesday of 3.8% in Taiwan, 3.1% in Japan, 2.0% in Hong Kong, and 1.2% in Singapore and South Korea. Australia’s market fell 1.1%, and in Europe, markets are down currently by between 1.4% and 2.3% in Switzerland, Spain, Italy, France, the U.K. and Germany. Technology stocks have […] More
May 10, 2021
Compared to Friday closing levels, the dollar is unchanged against the euro and Swiss franc. The U.S. currency is only 0.4% versus the Australian dollar, 0.3% relative to the Chinese yuan, 0.2% vis-a-vis sterling and 0.2% versus the loonie, Australian dollar, Mexican peso and weighted DXY index. The dollar has firmed 0.1% relative to the […] More
May 7, 2021
The dollar, down a mere 0.1% overnight, and the 10-year Treasury yield — unchanged at 1.57% — have been marking time ahead of the U.S. Labor Department’s monthly jobs report, which is expected to reveal a 0.1-0.2 percentage point drop in unemployment, another large jump in employment of close to 900k, but tepid wage pressure. […] More
May 6, 2021
The Central Bank of Brazil’s Selic Rate was hiked by 75 basis points for the second time this year. Itnow becomes 3.5%. In 2020, the rate had been cut to 2.0% from 4.5% in five incremental moves. The tightening this year has been done because core inflation has risen to the top of the range […] More
May 6, 2021
The dollar settled back 0.4% on a weighted basis and against the euro overnight. The dollar also lost 0.5% relative to the Swiss franc, 0.3% versus the loonie, and 0.1% relative to the New Zealand and Australian currencies. The dollar alternatively edged 0.1% higher against the peso and sterling and held steady on balance versus […] More
May 5, 2021
The dollar rose by a marginal 0.1% overnight, gaining 0.2% against the Turkish lira and 0.1% versus the Mexican peso and euro, holding steady versu the yen, Swiss franc and yuan, and dipping 02% against the loonie and Australian dollar and by 0.1% vis-a-vis sterling. Markets remained close one more day in China (Labor Day) […] More
May 4, 2021
In overnight trading, the dollar strengthened 1.0% against the kiwi and Turkish lira, 0.6% relative to the Australian dollar, 0.4% versus the euro, Swiss franc, and its weighted index, and 0.3% vis-a-vis the yen, loonie and sterling. Share prices in the Pacific Rim advanced 1.3% in New Zealand, 0.7% in Hong Kong, and 0.6% in […] More
May 3, 2021
An unexpected string of policy accomplishments during the first 100 days of the Biden Presidency was helped by redefining the meaning of some concepts that previously had ground legislation to a halt. The first of these changes concerns the meaning of bipartisanship. President Biden campaigned that he would restore bipartisanship, and Republican lawmakers, who universally […] More
May 3, 2021
The IHS-compiled manufacturing purchasing managers index moved above the ISM-compiled U.S. manufacturing PMI for the first time since January 2018. This crossing of the lines stemped from an unexpected 4.0-point decline in the U.S. index even as the euro area index rose 0.4 additional points to a record high. It should be noted, however, that […] More
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