inventories

About a month ago, I wrote a post on how market contagion would happen due to deteriorating credit conditions in energy high yield. And while this doesn’t necessarily lead to recession or financial crisis, it has already meant a real…

Since October I have been saying that the US growth was probably going to decline for the remainder of this business cycle. In contrast, I have believed Europe would recover ever since data last June confirmed a broad based phase shift…

Themes for today: Commodities: soybean prices could fall due to increased supply. This would be troublesome for Argentina. Emerging markets: Of the fragile five, India is looking better, Brazil is still a big concern. Developed…

It was interesting to see the US markets follow through yesterday to the upside after a monster rally in shares when the Fed tapered large scale asset purchases on Wednesday. But rather than seeing strength in this, I see vulnerability…

Yesterday, the FOMC decided to reduce the pace of its large scale asset purchase program from $85 billion per month to $75 billion per month. The Fed has long wanted to taper its LSAP program and move to forward guidance to normalize policy…

In spite of some relatively strong economic data coming out of the US, risks to near-term growth remain. One of those risks comes from higher than expected inventory build. We saw this come through in the latest GDP numbers.

I am not a bull, largely because I have concerns about the long-term sustainability of today’s policy mix in Europe and the United States and the rise in equity multiples. But it is undeniable that we are seeing a more bullish outlook for…

The release of the first estimate of Q3 GDP was initially met with excitement as the headline print of 2.82% growth was far in excess of consensus estimates of 2.0%. Unfortunately, the euphoria quickly faded as the details painted a much…

By Sober Look As discussed earlier (see post), US manufacturing data for November shows shrinking inventories. This is true for both the ISM survey ... ISM Inventories index (source: ISM) as well as the Markit PMI index: US Markit…

Retail sales are at recessionary levels right now, having dropped for a third consecutive month. I need to flag the inventories data that came out this morning in the US as the only thing between us and outright recession.