British retail sales
Extended Equity and Bond Market Damage from the Middle Eastern War
March 27, 2026
Ten-year sovereign debt yields are winding up the final full week of March near their highest levels of the 21st century in Japan and 15-18 year peaks in Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Just today has seen the yields advance by 11 basis points in the U.K. and Japan, 9 bps in Italy, 6 […] More
A Downward Momentum of Their Own in Global Equities
November 21, 2025
Share prices in Asian Pacific markets ended this difficult week with Friday losses of 3.8% in South Korea, 3.6% in Taiwan, 2.5% in China, 2.4% in Hong Kong and Japan, 1.6% in Australia and 1.0% in Singapore. European markets are under water, led by a drop so far today of 1.3% in Spain. U.S. futures […] More
Dollar & Equities Lifted by Persistent Hopes of Further Fed Easing
January 17, 2025
A series of U.S. price reports this week either met or undershot analyst predictions. Fears of a Fed interest rate hike have gone away for now, and hopes for one or two cuts later in 2025 remain alive. A second source of market relief came from news that the Israeli cabinet has approved the temporary […] More
Slew of Better-Than-Forecast Chinese Data and Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar Killed in Gaza
October 18, 2024
It remains to be seen if the death of Yahya Sinwar, who planned the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel leads to a Middle East cease-fire and how the remaining two-plus weeks of the U.S. election are affected. The unstoppable and reprehensible war has thus far enhanced the likelihood that former President Trump will be […] More
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 […] More
Spotlight on Middle East Tensions and Fed Policy Intentions
April 19, 2024
As promised, Israel responded to Iran’s prior missile attack, but the retaliation thus far has been tempered — just a few drone attacks against an Iranian military base near Isfahan that were shot down. Damages were light, and neither Israeli nor Iranian media are fanning the incident, which provoked initial financial confusion that helped depress […] More
Growing Confidence that Central Bank Interest Rates Are Coming
March 22, 2024
Fed Chairman’s reassuring press conference, central bank rate cuts in Switzerland, Brazil, Mexico, and the Czech Republic, and a hint from the German Bundesbank president that the ECB Governing Council might consider easing by early summer have lifted the mood of investors. The dollar has withstood this shift in sentiment. The weighted DXY dollar index […] More
Marking Time Ahead of U.S. Producer Price Release
February 16, 2024
The dollar is unchanged from Thursday closing levels against the euro, sterling, yuan, peso and Canadian dollar. The greenback has dipped 0.1% versus the Australian and New Zealand dollars but edged up 0.1% relative to the Swiss franc. Chinese markets remain shut as they’ve been all week in observance of the start of the Year […] More
Equities Ending Week on an Up-Note; Dollar a Touch Softer
January 19, 2024
Stock markets in the Pacific Rim recorded Friday gains of 2.6% in Taiwan, 1.4% in Japan, 1.3% in South Korea and 1.0% in Australia, but Chinese and Hong Kong share prices dipped 0.5%. U.S. stock futures are up around 0.5%, and major European markets are up but by less. Ten-year sovereign debt yields in Europe […] More
Softer Growth Into the Holidays
November 17, 2023
With the Thanksgiving holiday less than a week away, 2023 is moving into the home stretch with plenty of unanswered questions. Investors wonder how the twin wars in Ukraine and Gaza will resolve and whether the federal funds rate has in fact crested and, if so, how long it will stay at its peak. Will […] More
