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Energy politics and fickle friends
Energy politics makes for fickle friends. A decade ago, Qatar was the US administration’s BFF, with its invitation to relocate the US regional military base from Saudi Arabia to Qatar in return for support to secure a pipeline access through Syria for its soon to be expanding natural gas production. As a way of pricking […]
Continue readingWazzup – 12th June 2017
Theresa may have to eat crow when she dines with newly elected Macron tomorrow, but the more immediate driver to markets this week will be whether the Fed raises rates on Wednesday despite weak inflation, GDP and net job growth. For the UK, weak sterling and consumer expenditure growth figures from VISA suggest continued pressure […]
Continue readingUK election result – ‘hard brexit’ no less likely
So what now? The nightmare scenario, whereby Labour could form a Government looks unlikely. With 317 out of the 648 seats (of the 650 seats total) now counted, the Tories are clearly short of an overall majority, but with their historic allies, the DUP with 10 seats they can just scrape through, particularly should Sinn […]
Continue readingUS jobs data for May – real trends now being allowed to show through
Is the BLS letting markets down gently that the US economy sucks and to kiss goodbye to a rate hike in June? Beyond the boost in February from renewed shale fracking and an exceptionally mild winter (on mining and construction job formation), US job growth into 2017 has been dire. I’m not referring to the […]
Continue readingApril Non-farm payrolls: how to turn +76k jobs into +194k
This is feeling like Groundhog day. Another monthly jobs report by the Dept of Labor showing strong employment growth and triggering a wall of narrative from the markets proclaiming the next rate rise like the second coming, but another conclusion based on what Trump might describe as ‘fake news’. Were those who predicted April MoM […]
Continue readingWhen you need to believe the ‘crazies’ are in control
Management by chaos . Did anyone seriously believe that Trump would be able to get his ambitious stimulus plan through Congress if the economy was chugging along nicely as Yellen was continuing to portray? It was almost as implausible as expecting the EU to offer a painless Brexit for the UK while they remain convinced we […]
Continue readingExpect relief rally on a probable Macron win, but beware the implications of the forthcoming UK election in June
French Presidential elections are stacked against the extremes, as was the intention. Round one provides the electorate with the illusion of choice as they favour their particular candidate. By round two however, the vote is more likely cast with a view to exclude their least favoured candidate. As long as one centrist candidate can get […]
Continue readingNow you’ve been distracted, here’s the real US monthly job growth numbers
Gosh, with so much excitement going on in the world between the bombs, missile strikes and false flags it was easy to miss last week’s US non-farm payroll release for March. Not that one would have missed much. Having delivered its much anticipated second rate increase in the current tightening cycle, the Fed no longer […]
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