Weak job growth? Just fiddle the seasonal adjustments!

How can the Fed contemplate cutting rates when US Q1 GDP growth allegedly came in at over +3% and June saw a +224k MoM rise in employment? Perhaps because it knows these headline numbers are garbage and that the true underlying numbers are considerably worse than these. Having already commented on the fiddles used to […]

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Gold returns

Was it the flip-flopping Federal reserve or Draghi’s increasingly desperate attempts to reflate the ECB debt balloon, but with Iran scare stories it has done wonders for the gold price. While forthcoming Q2 results will be pretty drab for the industry, with H1 average prices broadly flat YoY, the second half is on track for […]

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US job growth stalls – a more reliable indicator than initial GDP

Well, well, once again the monthly non-farm payroll numbers provide the insight on the real state of the US economy. As with 2008, forget the official GDP numbers, or at least the initial ones. Forget also the the spin from those with an interest to persuade you everything is dandy, particularly those encouraging you to […]

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FCA-Renault merger crash tested by dummies

With the auto industry facing some existential challenges, one might have thought a low margin operator and its shareholders would have seized at the opportunity for a highly synergistic merger. Unfortunately, when one of those shareholders is the French Government, then the normal commercial rules don’t seem to apply. So after some foot-dragging by Macron […]

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Zero bond yields are not without a cost. Mind the Gap!

Interesting article yesterday on Bloomberg reporting that billionaire Stan Druckenmiller has dumped equities in favour of US treasuries, where he sees 10 year yields dropping to zero over the next 18 months. The two big assumptions however, is that Trump won’t get re-elected in 2020 and that US yields will converge down to those in […]

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Yield curve danger signals

A flattening yield curve is often taken as a bad omen for prospective GPD growth, so according to this theory, surely the increasing divergence in rates across the maturity range is good? Hmm, well actually no, as yields also diverged, while falling in the 2-3 quarters immediately preceding the last two recessions. Perhaps horse and […]

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