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’America, healing? Not in Bob’s world
When you start talking about US growth in 2012, it’s hard to stop. The huge November consumer credit increase being a case in point. Plus a long slew of comfy data on auto sales, jobs…
So if you’re looking for a snappy corrective — here’s a précis of the opposite view,
Crisis! We’ve got new words for the crisis
Sometimes, existing words just don’t cut it and you have to come up with some new ones. Or get your readers to do it for you.
In the current economic climate FT Alphaville has been running out of imaginative ways to convey a sense of imminent destruction.
Kaputt
And now you know the German for “stall speed”.
Headline changed to better reflect the effects of a slowdown in a major export economy on global growth… (see also Hong Kong’s reversion into recession in the second quarter as an indication of troubles facing world exports.
Meltdown [updated -- to rollercoaster]
Nine days of stocks falling. Nasdaq — like the S&P 500 — is now negative for the year. Situation in crude also ugly and the 10-year Treasury yield is advancing down to 2.5 per cent:
Update — Nasdaq is back in positive territory at pixel time (the FTSE Eurofirst 300 closed down 2 per cent though.) WTI crude’s hugging $92.
On the brink of a British double-dip
Dramatic, we know. But the ONS has confirmed the economy grew only 0.5 per cent in 2011′s first quarter after its 0.5 per cent fall in 2010′s last three months, and technically…
…That’s also already confirming a double-dip in GDP in absolute terms over the period,
The deflation risk is still out there, SocGen says
This is what happens when markets are built on sand (silicon QE, anyone?).
They can crumble all too quickly.
A reminder of market fragility, from Societe Generale’s cross-asset research team:
Presumably you need the Baltic Dry line in the first chart — an indicator of ‘real’ economic recovery — to match up with commodities prices,
The rantings of an ex-maestro
Alan Greenspan’s latest in CFR’s International Finance, wherein the former Fed chair blames ‘government activism‘ for the current (paltry) state of the US recovery.
And a big thanks to Paul Krugman for the title.
Further further reading
For the commute home, and to help you qualify the recovery,
- David Wessel spots three storm clouds in the US recovery: oil, rich-country government policy, and emerging market slowdown.
- David Leonhardt spots a few more.
Household deleveraging and consumer-led growth
The onslaught of chart porn begins with the changes in the US personal savings rate for the last five years, updated to reflect Monday’s income and outlays report from the BEA:
The decline in the December savings rate,
Goldman says don’t fear the rising bond yields
At least, not until they reach 5 per cent mark in Europe.
Out on Monday — a Goldman Sachs strategy note arguing that all those rising core bond yields (think US Treasuries, bunds or JGBs) have more to do with a global growth story than old-fashioned bond vigilante-style bearishness.
Goldman hedges its bets
Having announced with much fanfare last week a new, more positive view on the US economy, Goldman Sachs is back-tracking ever so slightly.
Now, the bank still thinks real GDP growth of 2.7 per cent next year and 3.6 per cent the year is the most likely outcome,
A surprise bullish turn
Goldman has updated its forecast for the US, expecting real GDP growth of 2.7 per cent next year and 3.6 per cent in 2012:
As always, we find the forecasts themselves less meaningful than the information contained in them.
Econ bloggers: outlook worse, again
Since we’re always curious to know what our blogospheric comrades are thinking, we’re highlighting a few items from the latest Kauffman survey of economic bloggers.
The previous survey, released in August,
A non-shocker of a Beige Book
The Fed’s seventh Beige Book of the year is out, covering the end of August to early October, and although it mostly depicts the same plodding rate of growth as in the previous report, there are some improvements.
Moody’s looks to Finland – to explain Ireland, Spain
Want to know the shape of things to come in Ireland? Spain?
Look no further than … Finland.
That particular Nordic nation experienced an almighty financial boom in the 1980s. In 1990 came the the bust — led by a slowdown in the global economy,
The Great Recession was so 2009
The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research has arbitrarily declared something of little real import announced that the Great Recession in the US officially ended more than a year ago (emphasis ours in all excerpts):
And you thought we were bearish
How best to summarise this long, depressing outlook on the global economy by Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer? We’ll give it a shot.
First, no matter who you are, you are too optimistic:
However, as we all know from human experience,
US Q2 GDP revised to 1.6 per cent
A beat for Ben.
US second-quarter GDP growth was revised from 2.4 per cent to 1.6 per cent by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday, above a consensus of 1.4 per cent revised growth.
Flashes,
Before Jackson Hole, Part 1: since last we met
It is now 17 days since the eagerly-awaited FOMC statement in which Ben Bernanke announced the plan to re-invest the repayments from the Fed’s MBS holdings into long-dated treasuries.
Given all the interest in his speech at Jackson Hole on Friday,
BIStoric
The Bank for International Settlements — the central banks’ bank — has done something great.
BIS has scanned and stuck all its historic annual reports online, in one easy-to-access place. The reports,
An initial double-dip indicator
Wells Capital Management wants everyone to forget Payroll Friday.
The number to focus on as an indicator for the shape of the US recovery, Wells’ chief investment strategist Jim Paulsen says, is not the monthly payroll figure,
US retail sales surprise — on the downside
Disappointing data on May’s US retail sales gave markets a nasty shock on Friday.
Flashes via Reuters:
RTRS-US MAY RETAIL SALES -1.2 PCT (CONSENSUS +0.2 PCT) VS APRIL +0.6 PCT (PREV +o.4 PCT)
RTRS-US
Dear George, about that inflation…
April inflation data for the UK is in, and it’s a bit of a bump on the head for the Bank of England: a 3.7 per cent rise in CPI year on year. From the Office of National Statistics release:
In the year to April,
‘Some horrendous Keynesian/monetarist nightmare’
Bob Janjuah is back and in his latest note we find the RBS strategist in reflective mood.
Maybe its the return of sunshine, maybe its because I have moved back into my lovely ‘new’ home after 6mths of renting &
The people’s flag is deepest red
Here’s a fun — and highly timely — bit of political science to ponder, just as legislators in the US and UK are limbering up for a big push on financial regulation, and markets wonder just how far they will go.
Recovery, OECD style (Germany not included)
Here’s some nice big-picture graphs to pore over on Thursday, courtesy of the OECD’s interim assessment of the recovery in developed economies.
Well, perhaps not so nice for Germany.
The OECD’s take on GDP growth in the G7 economies springs one surprise,
Non-farm payrolls data in: and the numbers are…
… rather good news. Data released by the US Labor Department on Friday showed consensus-beating numbers for both job losses in February (-36,000) and the overall jobless rate (9.7 per cent).
The flashes,
And now the weather, from Goldman
Predicting what Friday’s US non-farm payroll data for February will say has been a bit trickier than usual. A light dusting of snow, atop a fragile recovery, atop a historically volatile indicator.
And that’s why the vampire squid has played meteorologist in its comprehensive payroll note this week.
Correction: China’s exports did not spike in December
Investors cheered earlier this month when it emerged Chinese exports rose for the first time in 14 months last December (and by 17.7 per cent year on year no less).
Unfortunately for the bulls, Standard Chartered’s Stephen Green on Wednesday poured cold water over the notion that the figures confirm a global recovery is under way.
US returns to growth with 3.5% rise in Q3 GDP
Here it is – the number markets have been holding their collective breath for.
US GDP grew at an annualised rate of 3.5 per cent in the third quarter of 2009 according to the first estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.