Inflation doves can look no further than near record low yields on 2-year Treasuries to squelch inflation hawks ‘premature’ concerns. The 2-year yield is reflecting the fact that the recovery will remain lukewarm, with downside risks outweighing the contrary, essentially opening up hunting season on Fed hawks—already in small supply. While hawk hunting may be […]
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MikeMcD82
The amount of new homes for sale in the U.S. reached a multi-decade low in May helping boost U.S. homebuilders. To find a point in time where fewer new homes were on the market you would have to go all the way back to the early 70’s/late 60’s (see chart). While the sales pace of […]
China’s plummeting real estate transactions could spell trouble for domestic steel and cement industries. The average number of real estate transaction in China’s 15 largest cities fell 75% on an annual basis according to the most weekly June release according to Goldman Sachs. On a ytd basis transactions have declined -29%. The Chinese government has […]
The spread between France’s and Germany’s 10y Government bonds remain near levels not seen since the collapse of Lehman as France takes on tough fiscal tightening. Since the onset of the European debt crisis France and German yields have benefitted from worried investors moving funds away from economically weak Eurozone peripheries to the regions ‘stable’ AAA rated […]
The spreads for Europe’s economically weak peripheries over equivalent German bonds—the European benchmark—continue to approach their pre-bailout highs. The 10Y spread in Spain again reached record levels amidst rumors that IMF, EU and the U.S. Treasury may be creating a EUR250bn credit line for the country (so far the EU and the Treasury department have […]
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) has fallen 28% from its recent high on May 26th, indicating to some weakness in the global economy. The BDI tracks the prices of bulk carriers which are the life-blood of global trade carrying everything from iron ore to grain. While the 28% decline may seem ominous, the BDI is […]
Investors are feeling more at ease with the uncertainty facing global market. The AUD/JPY exchange rate—a popular FX carry trade and risk metric—has moved off of its recent lows of less than 74 to a level of 79.4. At the same time, 3M LIBOR halted its climb, and has remained fairly steady around 0.54%, albeit […]
Unusual volatility in the sale of building materials has exaggerated retail sales over the past three months. While this doesn’t change the prevailing trend, sales in both April and March would have appeared far less optimistic than reported. Building material sales climbed 8.0% in both March and April-a pace not seen since March 2004-plummting -9.3% […]
France is no European angel in terms of its fundamental, yet like Germany the credit has received ‘safe-haven’ status from investors; that is until recently. French 10Y government bonds have traded mostly lockstep with equivalent German debt since the onset of the European debt crisis, but since the beginning of June the spread between the […]
“Dear all: One Chinese official apparently leaks May macro data According to Reuters, a senior Chinese government official leaked some key macro data during an internal investor conference. If confirmed, it will be one of the largest leakages in China in two years. Official numbers are yet to be released. Relevant numbers are for CPI, […]