Global IT Outage as Republican Convention and Chinese Third Plenum Wrap Up
July 19, 2024
It’s been a banner century for technology, but yesterday was not a day to showcase. A snafu caused by a security update gone bad led to widespread IT outages around the world that tangled the airline and banking sectors in particular.
Former President Trump’s RNC 90+ minute acceptance speech has received widely mixed reviews, ranging from inspirational at times to other moments that were taunting and erratic.
China’s economic policy Plenum ended without broad plans to reinvigorate the country’s growth path.
The dollar in overnight trading rose modestly, climbing 0.2% against the Swiss franc, sterling and Australian dollar and by 0.1% relative to the euro, yen and Canadian dollar.
Disappointment in the aforementioned Plenum and concern over the prominent anti-import of a possible second Trump presidency sent share prices down 2.3% in Taiwan and 2.0% in Hong Kong. Stocks also closed lower in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and India, and key European share prices are down 0.4-0.7% thus far. Nasdaq futures have also continued to retreat.
Ten-year sovereign debt yields are unchanged in the U.S., Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Japan. Their British counterpart is two basis points higher.
The price of gold fell back 1.7% overnight, while movement in the prices of crypto and oil have been unremarkable.
Japanese overall consumer price inflation held steady at 2.8% in June. When excluding only energy and both energy and fresh food, inflation ticked 0.1 percentage point higher to 2.6% and 2.2%.
A number of European countries reported producer price inflation. Germany’s on-year PPI decline of 1.6% was its least negative in a year, as was the case in Latvia where producer prices in June were 1.9% lower than a year earlier. Slovenia‘s 12-month 2.1% PPI drop was the smallest in a half year, but in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, producer price inflation accelerated to 9.3% last month from 6.3% in May and -6.0% in June 2023.
Two related British data reports arrived today. First, consumer confidence printed this month at minus 13, a 34-month high. Second, retail sales in June were more disappointing that anticipated. Sales volume sank 1.2% on month and 0.2% on year in June. Sales excluding fuel slumped 1.5% on month and 0.8% on year.
Euroland’s current account swung from an EUR 8.6 billion deficit in May 2023 to a EUR 9.6 billion surplus a year later, and the cumulative surplus over the last year of reported balances equaled 2.4% of GDP. In seasonally adjusted terms, the current account surplus in both April and May each rounds to EUR 37 billion.
On-year Malaysian GDP growth accelerated in 2Q 2024 to a six-quarter high of 5.8% and averaged 5.0% in the first half of this year.
The Central Bank of Egypt’s policy interest rate, which had been lifted appreciably from 8.25% in March of 2022 to 27.25% by March of this year, was maintained at 27.25% after this month’s planned policy review. As elevated at such has become, CPI inflation of 27.5% last month was even higher, albeit just barely. Inflation has receded from 38% last September to a 17-month low, and officials expect price pressure to ebb further. They have an inflation target of 5-9%.
Copyright 2024, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: British retail sales, Euroland current account, German PPI, Japanese consumer prices, Trump acceptance speech
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