Stress among lower-income households is often cited as an early indication of deteriorating aggregate consumer fundamentals. The data indeed suggests that this cohort’s cash holdings are depleting. However, the Fed…
US retail sales grew 0.1% m/m in August and beat expectations of a 0.2% monthly contraction. The positive surprise seemingly spurred equity market gains on Tuesday morning. However, details do not paint as rosy a…
Stocks are a forward discounting mechanism and routinely top before recessions begin, even if they typically do not swoon until the recession has taken hold. According to BCA Research’s US Investment Strategy service, if…
The Chinese economic data in its totality was uninspiring in August. Industrial production and retail sales growth decelerated year-on-year and corroborate the message from August’s import and credit growth data that…
Subdued demand for credit among Chinese private-sector businesses and households persisted through August. Outstanding loan growth decelerated from 8.7% y/y to 8.5%. Moreover, M1’s contraction deepened, from 6.6% to 7.…
Preliminary estimates suggest that consumer sentiment improved in September. The headline University of Michigan consumer sentiment index increased from 67.9 to a higher-than-projected 68.5. Both the current conditions and…
The US suffers from enough imbalances to produce a mild recession. Unfortunately, such a recession could lead to a significant bear market in stocks, just as it did during the very mild 2001 recession.
The ECB will cut rates once more this year; however, markets underprice how far it will ease next year.