Service sector PMIs
Democrats Made Gains in U.S. Election and Service Sector PMI Surveys Show Euroland Recovery Gaining Broader Traction
November 5, 2025
Democrats swept the five most closely watched U.S. election contests, winning gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and the New York City mayoral race, allowing California congressional districts to be redrawn, and preventing a Republican effort to remove and replace three seats on the Pennsylvania state supreme court currently held by the Democratic majority. […] 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
Fed Rate Cut Hopes and Several Economic Data Releases
December 4, 2024
By a three to one margin, financial markets anticipate a 25-basis point interest rate cut from the Fed later this month, compared to a minority view that officials may choose not to ease at this time. Several U.S. data releases occurred this Friday: ADP estimates that 146k private-sector jobs were created in November, which is […] More
Dollar Up Amid More PMI Results and Unexpected U.S. Employment Data
December 3, 2021
The dollar strengthened overnight by 0.3% to within half a percentage point of its 52-week high. The currency is 0.4% higher against the euro but just 0.1% up versus the yen. The price of WTI oil recovered 3.0%, and that of gold rose 0.5%. Ten-year sovereign debt yields have slipped two basis points in the […] More
After Political Setback for the Democrats, Investor Attention Turns to Fed and Global Economic Trends
November 3, 2021
The FOMC decision will be announced at 14:00 EDT (18:oo GMT) and followed by Powell’s press conference 30 minutes later. A tapering of Fed net monthly asset purchases currently totaling $80 billion of Treasury securities and $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities is widely expected. Running on an anti-vaccination and anti-progressive cultural message, U.S. Republicans in […] More
Economic Recoveries Restrained by Worker Fears of Catching Covid
September 3, 2021
U.S. August labor statistics highlight a mix of weakening jobs growth and strengthening upward pressure on prices. Non-farm payroll jobs rose only 235k, about a third as much as was forecast. This undershoot overwhelmed a combined 132k upward revision of jobs growth in June-July. Although the unemployment rate and under-employment rate dropped by 0.2 and […] More
Much Data in Spite of U.S. Holiday
July 5, 2021
Monday’s menu of economic data releases includes over 30 purchasing manager surveys, French industrial production, British and German new car sales, Turkey’s CPI and PPI, Australian and Singaporean retail sales, and consumer confidence in Spain, Mexico and the Philippines. Fissures have developed in OPEC unity over production quotas. Observances continue of America’s 245th birthday. Today […] More
Investor Anxiety on Multiple Fronts
June 3, 2021
Investor concern about runaway inflation keeps getting fed by fresh data. Today’s menu of May purchasing manager survey reports revealed record input inflation in many cases, intensifying capacity constraints, and input price inflation bleeding into output charges. A further 4-percentage point acceleration of Turkish producer price inflation to a 30-month high of 38.2% in May […] More
U.S. Political Stress, PMI Services, A U.S. Jobs Report Shocker, and FOMC Minutes on Today’s Radar Screen
January 6, 2021
In the Georgian senate runoff elections, Warnock has apparently beaten his Republican opponent, and Ossoff holds a razor-thin 50.2%/49.8% lead over the Republican incumbent with 98% of ballots counted. If these leads hold, Democrats would take over the senate majority. The congress is scheduled to tally the state certified presidential electoral voting results this afternoon […] More
