On the surface, the Tuesday release of the NFIB Small Business Survey indicated resilience among small businesses. The headline index appreciated to 89.7 from 88.5, upending expectations of a moderation to 88.2. However,…
The US Citi Economic Surprise Index has recently dipped below zero, indicating that US economic data releases have been disappointing expectations. Most notably, the ISM Services PMI started contracting in April against…
Emergency pandemic policies elongated the lag between Fed rate hikes and an observable slowdown in the economy. Notably, fiscal transfers and constrained consumption options endowed households with more than $2 trillion of…
The Bank of Japan’s Economy Watchers Survey – a gauge of sentiment among business owners – disappointed in April. The Current Conditions and the Outlook indices deteriorated from 49.8 to 47.4 (20-month low) and…
We marked the first X on our Equity Downgrade Checklist and the latest JOLTS, Employment Situation and SLOOS releases brought us closer to ticking some others. We remain tactically neutral on equities but expect that we will…
German Bunds have cheapened considerably, and the ECB is about to start cutting rates. Does this combination guarantee immediate profits from buying these bonds?
According to BCA Research’s Foreign Exchange Strategy service, the improvement in global economic data will put some upward pressure on yields while pressuring the dollar lower (as a counter-cyclical currency). When it…
The idea that rising interest rates benefit value at the expense of growth has become consensus amongst market participants. The rationale is simple: Most of the cashflow that shareholders will receive from growth stocks are…
Preliminary GDP estimates suggest that the UK economy started growing again in Q1, thus exiting a technical recession in the past two quarters. Q1 growth came in at 0.6%, improving from a 0.3% contraction last quarter,…
The Canadian economy added 90.4 thousand jobs in April, up from a new loss of 2.2 thousand jobs in March. The April reading beat expectations of a more moderate increase of 20 thousand. The services sector entirely explains April…