Tag Archives for " monetary policy "

Asset allocation for 2023 – first pick your macro scenario

Go into a car salesroom or estate agent (realtor) and ask if it’s a good time to buy and I think we all know what the answer would be. Why then should we be surprised at a similar response from those pushing ‘stawks’ and bonds for a living? Here, the year-end prognostications for 2023 from […]

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US August jobs – porridge tepid and cooling

Markets weren’t expecting much from the August non-farm employment data and they didn’t disappoint. While average wage growth remained solidly above +3%, the underlying rate of private sector job growth slipped back to an anaemic +64k, with +15k of this coming from temporary help. Although comfortably ahead of the level of contraction that would signal […]

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Yellen does virtuous – 5 years too late!

Confused?  Well you should be be if you’ve been believing the usual output from the Federal Reserve. Contrary to the narrative of robust US economic growth and tightening labour markets requiring a normalisation of interest rates, things aren’t quite as rosy as Ms Yellen had been suggesting.  Behind the increasingly absurd non-farm payroll data with […]

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Another non-farm payroll and another missed opportunity to normalise rates

“Silence”. That is what I hear after yesterday’s March US non-farm payroll figures. Even a few months ago, these data points, while flawed were eagerly awaited as harbingers of revisions in US Fed monetary policy. Not any more. After February’s decision to hold rates in what looks like a clumsy attempt to goose oil prices […]

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