U.S. personal income and spending
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
Steep Retreat Resumes in Equities; Lots of Data Reported in Final Session of January
January 29, 2021
Share prices fell 3.0% in South Korea, 2.0% in Indonesia, 1.9% in Japan, 1.8% in Taiwan, 1.3% in India, 0.9% in Hong Kong, and 0.6% in both Australia and China overnight. European markets and U.S. futures are down 1.0% or more. Efforts to halt the meteoric advance of shorted stocks like GameStop worked only briefly. […] More
Dollar Firms…. Trump Wants Big Changes in Pandemic Relief Bill
December 23, 2020
The dollar rose overnight by 0.5% against the Swiss franc, 0.4% versus the euro, Aussie and New Zealand currencies and Mexican peso, and 0.2% relative to the yen, loonie, and sterling. Stocks also rebounded, with Asian gains of 1.0% in India and South Korea, 0.9% in Hong Kong, 0.8% in China, 0.3% in Japan, and […] More
Lots of Monthend Data, Fresh Covid Records, Disappointing Tech Earnings, and Home Stretch of the U.S. Election Campaign
October 30, 2020
Almost 600,000 new Covid cases worldwide have been identified in the past day, and the U.S. count exceeded 90,000 for the day and more than 9 million since the first case was reported. U.S. stock futures are down about 1% after several high tech firms reported weaker-than-forecast earnings for 3Q. Share prices in the Pacific […] More
Dollar Downtrend Accelerates
August 28, 2020
Powell’s speech that formally redefined the Federal Reserve’s inflation target and policy response function implies lower U.S. interest rates for longer and gave the dollar’s pandemic-related downtrend further impetus. Overnight the dollar depreciated by 1.3% against the Mexican peso, 1.7% relative to the Australian dollar, 1.2% versus the yen and kiwi, 0.8% vis-a-vis sterling and […] More
Weak Data, More Coronavirus Cases, and Concern Over Trump’s Wish to Delay November’s Election
July 31, 2020
In spite of overnight dollar gains of 0.5% against the Swiss franc, Mexican peso, and New Zealand dollar and a rise of 0.2% relative to the yen and Australian dollar, the U.S. currency suffered through July and seems likely to post its biggest trade-weighted loss in almost ten years. Compared to Thursday’s close, the dollar […] More
Another Record Daily High in New Covid-19 Infections
June 26, 2020
Over the past 24 hours, new coronavirus cases and deaths in the United States rose by 41,735 and 2,491. Total reported U.S. cases moved marginally above 2.5 million, but in a chilling portent of the possible future trend, medical officials believe that outstanding U.S. infections may be as much as ten times greater than the […] More
Month-End Flood of Data Paints May 2020 as Anything But Merry
May 29, 2020
During May, roughly 2.69 new cases of Covid-19 were identified worldwide, and over 133,000 died from the disease. The U.S. share of the total 362,829 identified deaths related to the pandemic remains at 28.5% even though the United States has just 4.3% of the world’s population. The racial protests in Minneapolis have spread to other […] More
ECB Monetary Policy Review and Some Atrocious Economic Data
April 30, 2020
At a scheduled meeting of the European Central Bank Governing Council, officials left key interest rate unchanged (a 0.0% refinancing rate flanked by a -0.5% deposit rate and a 0.25% marginal lending rate). Quantitative stimulus (asset purchases) was not enhanced beyond last month’s parameters. Terms were relaxed on some lending operations, and a new series […] More
Fresh Coronavirus Concerns Hit Share Prices
March 27, 2020
The global tally of identified Covid-19 infections is at 549,430 people and has produced 24,872 deaths thus far. Spain saw its death count jump by 493 in the past day to 4,858 overall. In the U.K., both Prince Charles and Prime Minister John have tested positive. The United States now tops the leader board in […] More
