US economy, Brexit, and the global slowdown during an equities rally
Equities continued their rally today, both in the US and globally. While the US rally was impeded by bad news for Boeing, the S&P 500 did eke out a gain on the back of a rally in tech. Cisco, for example, is up 29% since it bottomed on…
People are finally realizing that the jobs picture has weakened
It took the dramatic downshift in non-farm payrolls today for people to wake up to the drip-drip of weak jobs data coming out of the US. This put the equity market into a funk and caused bond yields to sink back to where they were on…
ECB’s reversal, covenant lite vulnerability, and delinquent mortgages
ECB stimulus
The biggest development today was the ECB's announcement that it is reversing its stance on stimulus and offering new bank loans:
The European Central Bank signaled a major policy reversal Thursday, flagging plans for fresh…
Bullish ISM data and some thoughts on stall speed
The February 2019 Non-Manufacturing ISM data were very bullish. Both the headline and the major subindices showed a lot of strength. And for me that indicates the 0.3% number on the Atlanta Fed GDPNow tracker will move up markedly as more…
The stall speed US economy and fireworks in Europe
Stalled outYou probably saw this but the Atlanta Fed came out with its first Q1 GDPNow estimate. And it's starting at a 0.3% level. Here's the chart.
GDPNow is a nowcast. So it can change dramatically. And it isn't always very close to…
MMT for Dummies
In the last few weeks, I've been seeing a lot of buzz about Modern Monetary Theory aka MMT. And most of what I'm seeing is reductionist to the point of absurdity. When I see critics of MMT talking about it, they're mostly using MMT as a…
GDP growth surprise, jobless claims and the second referendum debate
I have a number of threads to address here. The first is that we got two big pieces of economic data out of the US this morning, one backward looking and the other coincident or forward looking. And I want to break down. My overall take is…
May has admitted she could delay Article 50. What comes next?
May's stalling tactic hasn't worked
In the two months since British Prime Minister Theresa May decided to postpone a Parliamentary vote on her deal with the EU, I have been predicting she would be forced to delay implementation of Article…
Random musings about populism and work
For the past several years, I have been trying to write more about outcomes and less about theories and policy prescriptions. But, like anyone, I have a core set of beliefs on economics and a lot more.
Economics is not a science; it is a…
The rebellion against no-deal Brexit and recession in Europe
A detour to the other side of the pond
I have two big picture issues on my mind this morning. The first is the US economy and the US policy response. I think the Neil Irwin piece in the New York Times encapsulates a lot of the thinking on…