Highlights Duration: We see current bond market behavior as very similar to mid-2016, when heightened political uncertainty obscured the economy’s true strength and kept bond yields lower for longer than was justified by the…
First, housing data is improving. Yesterday, the NAHB homebuilder confidence index smartly rebounded for the month of May. In addition, both building permits and housing starts have stabilized, and even beat expectations this…
There are two important implications related to this unprecedented divergence among property sales, starts and completions. The first is that raising funds via launching property starts along with shrinking completions has…
The German manufacturing PMI, which clocked in at 44.4, remains a large drag on global manufacturing PMIs. Worryingly, Swedish PMIs and the U.S. ISM echoed this pictured of weaker manufacturing activity. Last year’s…
Evidence continues to mount that global growth is starting to rebound. European GDP was strong in Q1 and Korean exports, another global growth bellwether, beat expectations in April. However, just like how U.S. activity was…
It’s official, the Italian technical recession is over. Italian GDP growth moved back into positive territory in the first quarter. Additionally, Spanish GDP growth rebounded to 0.7% on a quarterly basis, or 2.4% year-on-…
The flash estimates for the Eurozone manufacturing PMI moved up in April to 47.8 from 47.5. In Japan, they rose to 49.5 from 49.2. In the U.S, they were stable at 52.4. Despite this stabilization, bond yields weakened and the…
Yesterday, the German factory orders sent a chill down the spine of anyone with a positive disposition toward European growth, as they fell 8.4% on an annual basis in February. However, foreign orders drove this meltdown,…
Highlights Odds are that the recent improvement in Chinese manufacturing PMIs could be due to inventory re-stocking rather than a decisive turnaround in final demand. “Hard” data have not shown meaningful improvements in…