French GDP
February Ends with a Snag in the U.S. Fiscal Package, Plenty of Price and GDP Data, and President Biden’s First Military Action
February 26, 2021
World financial are exiting February in a highly volatile conditions. Share prices tumbled today by 5.0% in Taiwan, 4.0% in Japan, 3.8% in India, 3.6% in Hong Kong, 2.8% in South Korea, 2.4% in Australia, and 2.1% in China. Equity markets in Europe are down 1.5% in the U.K., 0.9% in France and Italy, and […] More
Some Optimism from Three Fronts
August 29, 2019
Investors continue to believe that the U.S. and China can work out some kind of truce in the trade war. It is also thought the resignation of the Scottish Conservative Party leader, Ruth Davidson, may impede British Prime Minister Johnson’s ability to pull the U.K. out of the EU without any negotiated deal on October 31. […] More
Further Decline in Sovereign Debt Yields and Share Prices
May 29, 2019
The ten-year U.S. Treasury yield dropped another 3 basis points, and sovereign debt yields of similar maturity slid a basis point overnight in Germany, the U.K., and Japan as well. Investors are bracing for slower global growth as trade protectionism intensifies. Share prices fell by a bit more than 1.0% in Japan, South Korea, France, […] More
No Deal Between U.S. and North Korea and a Whole Lot of Data Released
February 28, 2019
The summit between U.S. President Trump and North Korean President Kim ended prematurely without an agreement. Share prices in Asia lost 1.8% in South Korea, 1.3% in Indonesia, 1.2% in Singapore, 0.9% in Hong Kong, 0.8% in Japan but only 0.4% in China. In Europe, there’s been scant net movement in the German Dax or […] More
Brexit Mess, An FOMC Announcement, and Some Weak Data Reports
January 30, 2019
Last night’s British parliamentary votes produced an ill-advised win for Prime Minister May, rejecting a no-deal option or a second referendum in favor of authorization for the prime minister to attempt a renegotiation of parts of her agreement with the rest of the EU. Those governments have repeatedly ruled out renegotiation, so a no-deal Brexit […] More
Mixed U.S. Data, Lots of Other Data, and Ever-present Worries about The Mueller Investigation and U.S.-Sino Trade Strains
November 29, 2018
U.S. personal income rose 0.5% last month, a 7-month high. Personal consumption expenditures went up even more robustly, 0.6%, and the core PCE price deflator measure of U.S. inflation settled back 0.1 percentage point to 1.8%. On the other hand, U.S. pending home sales sank 2.6% to a near four-year low and recorded an on-year […] More
Down Goes the British Pound
November 15, 2018
With British Prime Minister Theresa May facing a vote of no confidence and several of her cabinet ministers resigning in protest against her Brexit deal, sterling slumped 1.5% overnight against both the dollar and euro. Weak British retail sales data were also released today, showing an unexpected 0.5% on-month drop in total sales (+2.2% on […] More
Some weak European and Japanese Data
August 29, 2018
French GDP growth slowed to a 0.2% per quarter rate in the first half of 2018 from 0.7% per quarter in the second half of 2017. In the second quarter alone, personal consumption contracted for the first time since the summer of 2016. Imports advanced five times faster than exports, and net foreign demand exerted […] More
Dollar, U.S. Stocks, and Treasury Yields Little Changed After Strong U.S. GDP Report
July 27, 2018
U.S. GDP expanded 4.1% last quarter at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate. That was the fastest quarterly pace since the third quarter of 2014, but analysts had anticipated such a figure. Personal consumption, non-residential investment and government spending climbed 4.0%, 7.3% and 2.1%, respectively. Net foreign demand augmented the growth rate by 1.1 percentage points […] More
Stocks Up… Dollar and Yen Down
March 26, 2018
Equities recouped some of last week’s heavy losses in early trading. Share prices closed higher by 0.7% in Japan, 1.4% in India, and 0.8% in Hong Kong and South Korea. Equities in Europe so far show gains of 1.0% in Switzerland, 0.7% in Germany, 0.6% in Spain, 0.5% in the U.K. and 0.4% in France. […] More
