Tuesday Rundown
April 16, 2024
The mounting relief late in 2023 and early this year that monetary easing happens sooner rather than later has largely dissipated in the face of uncooperative data. To be sure, economic data rarely move in a strictly linear fashion, and monetary policies are guided not by single points of data but rather on the basis of all incoming information. Nonetheless, when the mantra is policy will be “data-dependent,” it’s hard for investors or policymakers to avoid aberrations.
Following a difficult time last week and Monday in North American equity trading, share prices slumped today by 1.9% in Japan, 1.8% in Great Britain and 1.4% in Germany, and U.S. stocks failed to stage a comeback.
After a gain of 7 basis points today, the ten-year U.S. Treasury yield, which had dived over 120 basis points in a bit over two months late last year, has reversed 71% of that move and is just 35 basis points below its October 2023 peak.
The dollar stayed firm Tuesday but didn’t appreciate further. Gold climbed somewhat more than 1%, and Bitcoin fell almost 1%.
A 0.4% monthly rise of U.S. industrial production last month matched February’s increase and was aligned with analyst expectations. The sharp rise of U.S. housing starts in February was completely reversed din March.
Canadian consumer price growth of 0.6% in March matched the cumulative rise over the three months from December through February, and the 12-month rate of increase inched higher back to 2.9%.
Investor sentiment toward the German and euro zone economies according to the ZEW monthly survey improved sharply in April despite scant change in the depressed perception of current conditions. The subindex of inflation expectations points to a slower disinflation over the coming year.
German wholesale prices in March matched February’s 3.0% year-on-year decline, which had been the largest in October.
Euroland’s seasonally adjusted trade surplus shrank from EUR 27.1 billion in January to EUR 17.9 billion in February, but the unadjusted January-February surplus ballooned from EUR 3.6 billion in 2023 to EUR 23.6 billion in 2024.
British average weekly earnings over the three months through February matched the prior month’s 5.6% pace, and unemployment moved above 4.0% to 4.2%.
Turkish retail sales (+3.5% on month in February) beat market expectations.
Copyright 2024, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: U.S. industrial production, ZEW expectations for Euroland and Germany
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