trade

US headline PPI came in somewhat higher than expected at 0.4%.  Weekly initial jobless claims were a bit stronger than expected and the US trade deficit was wider than expected.    The trade balance, adjusted for…

Earlier this week I had a debate on TV with a local economist on the subject of trade relations. We had the same debate about six and twelve months ago and in each case while I argued that the trade problems were almost intractable and…

Note the reserve amounts in this post have been amended to reflect the $200 billion increase instead of the $20 billion originally cited. There are four developments in China to note today. First, China reported that its reserves jumped…

By David Galland During our just-concluded Casey’s Gold & Resource Summit, Doug Casey spoke out about the folly that central bankers commit when they set out to deliberately weaken their currencies in the hope of gaining an advantage…

by Edward Hugh Just to follow up on my recent long Estonia post, a couple of new data points have caught my attention recently: the sharp rise in Estonian inflation and the ongoing goods trade deficit. In the first place it is worth…

Morgan Stanley has an interesting piece out today, arguing there is  no 'currency war'... yet. Win Thin made some points on this score yesterday, pointing to real effective exchange rates in developing countries. Morgan Stanley's Manoj…

In regards to Ed's last post on China and trade, the position of Michael Pettis is much closer to mine (and Martin Wolf's, which he expressed yesterday in the FT).  The quote of Pettis that Ed cites does not invalidate my position at…

As a result of the Federal Reserve's next round of quantitative easing, Goldman Sachs is predicting a sharp slump in the US dollar's value against other major currencies. In particular, the dollar is expected to weaken to $1.79 against the…

The global economy, now supported in the main only by the overextended U.S. consumer, finds itself at stall speed, susceptible to any number of potential exogenous shocks. Ultimately, the economic malaise created by this confluence of…

Because of US and European pressure Beijing may allow much faster appreciation of the renminbi than it likes over the next year, but this will almost certainly be accompanied with policies that reduce the adverse employment impact. In my…