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Seasonal adjustments salvage what would have been a dire October non-farm payroll number
Think +142k in October for Private sector jobs was poor? How would you feel about +37k then? Unlike in some countries, the US government would never stoop so low as bend some piece of economic data to gain a political advantage ahead of an election. The recovery in Q3 GDP to +2.9% (‘real’) trumpeted a […]
Continue readingUS Agency revenue growth plummets in Q3 – the canary in the mine
With less than a week to go and Trump edging ahead in some polls, albeit possibly still behind with regards electoral college votes, there’s going to be some sweaty palms in financial markets. A month ago, a Clinton victory may have seemed like a slam dunk and indeed one bookie (Paddy Power Betfair) was reported […]
Continue readingUS Q3 GDP bounce exaggerated by soyabeans and deflator
Q3 US GDP was “better than expected” at +2.9% and according to Capital Economics, “confirms that the economic recovery has regained some of the momentum lost with last year” and ..”As such leaves the Fed firmly on track to raise interest rates in December” Well there you have it, the consensus view from economists! […]
Continue readingUS reported Federal deficit of -$587bn dwarfed by cash deficit of over -$1.4tn
If you haven’t noticed, there is an entire industry of well funded professional spin doctors out there whose business is to present their clients performance in the very best possible light. Whether those clients are corporates trying to game an advantageous cost of capital or a Government claiming to be able to walk on economic […]
Continue readingSeptember US non-farm payrolls fall short of expectations – again
The headline seemed so authoritative (“U.S. nonfarm payroll job growth seen pushing case for Fed hikes”) and coming from Reuters as well! http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-idUSKCN1270BP Unfortunately, notwithstanding coming off a weak August, September’s non-farm payroll additions of +156k (and +167k for the private sector) fell short of the +175k predicted from Reuters survey of economists. So does […]
Continue readingBrexit sitzkrieg
Over three months on from the Brexit vote and the World still turns and UK economic activity has been largely unaffected, with August retail sales up +6.2% YoY and September data showing UK consumer confidence index returning to pre-referendum levels (GfK) and UK manufacturing PMI (Markit) hitting 55.4, the highest level since May 2014. Lower […]
Continue readingUS state tax receipts fall by -2.2%; hardly a prelude for a Fed rate increase!
Sometimes the ‘facts’ are difficult to reconcile, particularly when these are government statistics. For Yellen this has included maintaining the fiction that all is well with the US economic recovery, but not so good that the Fed should take its foot off the monetary accelerator. Along with other market commentators we monitor the monthly data […]
Continue readingDo central banks see a problem with Barrick?
There is something rather ironic about Central Banks using deflation as an excuse to print cash which is then used to buy gold shares, which are of course a leveraged play on rising gold prices which in turn are a reflection of the lack of confidence in central bank monetary policies. For the Swiss CB […]
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