Euroland producer prices
Political Uncertainties, GDP and Price Data, and Another Large Batch of PMI Survey Releases
September 3, 2025
Omnipresent political concerns keep chugging along. France and Japan face possible political leadership changes later this month. Tensions are rising between China and the United States. U.S. policies on tariffs, domestic military policing and deportations without due process are being challenged in the courts. Stagflationary news casts some doubt on coming central bank interest rate […] More
Tariff Fears Back in Ascendance
May 6, 2025
If enduring dollar hegemony could be assumed, big shocks like a global tariff war would correlate with an appreciating trend driven by safety-seeking capital flows. However, America’s tariff-centric trade policy represents a revolution away from the whole dynamic of the post-WW2 international monetary system. Contrary to the previous conventional wisdom, the more investors worry about […] More
What Have You Got to Lose?
April 3, 2025
As a politician, U.S. President Trump has shown an uncanny aptitude for selecting short, catchy slogans that proved to be a huge success at the ballot box. The best known of these is Make America Great Again, whose acronym MAGA took on the name of his political movement. Another best seller to his fans was […] More
Major Risk-Off Alert
August 5, 2024
Reminiscent of October 19, 1987, a.k.a Black Monday when a difficult Friday session coalesced into a category 5 stampede out of risky assets culminating in a record 22.6% single day plunge in the DOW, today has seen a cascade of eye-popping equity market drops. And like then, an element of the storm has been a […] More
Another Sign of Cooler U.S. Growth, Which Isn’t an Entirely Unwelcome Thing
June 5, 2024
ADP’s monthly calculation of U.S. private-sector employment growth rose by a less-than-anticipated 152k last month. That constitutes the smallest gain since +111k in January. Composite and service-sector purchasing manager readings for the euro area in May of 52.2 (a one-year high) and 53.2 (a 3-month low but the fourth straight score above 50) appear to […] More
Contending With Super Tuesday Primaries, China’s Lackluster Growth Outlook, and Uncertain Monetary Policy
March 5, 2024
There’s an uneasy mood in the financial community. The likelihood of a second and far more chaotic Trump presidency keeps growing. Once today’s U.S. primary results are counted, the Republican nomination race will be effectively over. Meanwhile, the Democrats can’t find a convincing way to dispel comparisons of Biden’s current health to those of Woodrow […] More
Significant Rise in Long-Term Sovereign Debt Yields to Start the Week
February 5, 2024
The popular U.S. TV investigative new show 60 Minutes scored a journalistic scoop with a rare private interview of the Federal Reserve chairman, including a comment that moved world financial markets overnight. Most of the interview rehashed ground that Chairman Powell had included in his press conference last week, but a remark that that he […] More
Another Rise in Equities Despite Higher Bond Yields and Price of Oil
April 4, 2023
Fear of an additional climb in central bank interest rates has lessened. The Reserve Bank of Australia‘s Official Cash Rate, which had been raised from 0.1% to 3.6% between May 2022 and last month, was left unchanged. A released statement said that inflation had peaked in Australia but projects that a return to the 2-3% […] More
U.S. August Employment Report Didn’t Change Monetary Policy Outlook
September 2, 2022
Each month, an estimate from ADP of private employment growth arrives two days before the highly anticipated U.S. Labor Department employment report. Sometimes, but not always as this month proved, the ADP provides early notice concerning the accuracy of street forecasts for employment growth. ADP had estimated only a 132k increase in U.S. private sector […] More
Good Day for the Dollar and a Bad One for the Turkish Lira
June 2, 2021
The U.S. dollar strengthened 0.4% against its weighted DXY index overnight, advancing by 0.6% relative to the Swiss franc, 0.5% versus the Australian and New Zealand dollars, 0.4% against the euro, and 0.3% vis-a-vis the Japanese yen. Among the major currencies, only the British pound (+0.1%) outperformed the dollar. At the other extreme, the Turkish […] More
