Tag Archives: 5) Global Macro

The economic data reported over the last month managed to confirm both that the economy is slowing and that there seems little reason to fear recession at this point. The slowdown is mostly a manufacturing affair – and some of that is actually a fracking slowdown – but consumption has also slowed. On a more positive note, housing seems to have found its footing with lower rates and employment is still fairly robust....

Industrial gauges rebound on seansonality as well as policy easing. Chinese PMI readings moved back into expansion territory in March. The official Chinese manufacturing PMI rose to 50.5, up from 49.2 in February, and beating the Bloomberg consensus of 49.6, while the Caixin manufacturing PMI came in at 50.8, also up from 49.9 in February and beating the consensus expectation of 50.0. Details of the PMI survey report...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut its benchmark money rate for the second straight meeting. Reducing its repo rate by 25 bps, down to 6%, the central bank once gripped by political turmoil has certainly shifted gears. Former Governor Urjit Patel was essentially removed (he resigned) in December after feuding with the federal government over his perceived hawkish stance. Shaktikanta Das, a career bureaucrat with...

Zombification / Japanification is not success; it is only the last desperate defense of a failing, brittle status quo by doing more of what’s failed. A recent theme in the financial media is the Japanification of Europe.Japanification refers to a set of economic and financial conditions that have come to characterize Japan’s economy over the past 28 years: persistent stagnation and deflation, a low-growth and...

Social media offers hope of achieving higher online social status without having to succeed financially in a winner-take-most economy. I’ve often addressed the decline of social mobility and the addictive nature of social media, and recently I’ve entertained the crazy notion that the two dynamics are related. Why Is Social Media So Toxic? I have long held that the decline of social mobility–broad-based opportunities to...

In a way, the government shutdown couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment. As workers all throughout the sprawling bureaucracy were furloughed, markets had run into chaos. Even the seemingly invincible stock market was pummeled, a technical bear market emerged on Wall Street as people began to really consider increasingly loud economic risks. There had been noises overseas, troubling indications that had gone on...

What cannot be replaced by corporate chains is neighborhood character and variety. There is much more to this article than first meets the eye: In a Tokyo neighborhood’s last sushi restaurant, a sense of loss “Eiraku is the last surviving sushi bar in this cluttered neighborhood of steep cobblestoned hills and cherry trees unseen on most tourist maps of Tokyo. Caught between the rarified world of $300 omakase dinners...

Those who own stocks and housing now will continue getting richer, those who don’t will be priced out of these markets. A classified Federal Reserve memo sheds new light on the Fed’s confidence in its control of the economy and the stock and housing markets. In effect, the Fed is guaranteeing that there will be no recession for another 10 years, and that stocks and housing will remain in a permanent uptrend....

Alhambra CEO discusses all the talk about the recent yield curve inversion and how he views it. [embedded content] Related posts: Monthly Macro Monitor – February (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – December 2018 (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – October 2018 (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – January 2019 Monthly Macro Chart Review – March (VIDEO) Monthly...

Entering commoditized, fiercely competitive low-margin services cannot substitute for the high-margin profits that will be lost as global recession and saturation erode iPhone sales. Apple has always been equally an enterprise and a secular religion. The Apple Faithful do not tolerate heretics or critics, and non-believers “just don’t get it.” So the first thing any critic must do is establish their credentials as a...