Recession-Hard/Soft Landing
Total consumer credit rose by USD 11.4 billion in May (to USD 5,065 billion outstanding) from a slightly upwardly revised USD 6.5 billion increase in April, surpassing expectations of a smaller increase. Notably, revolving credit (which includes credit cards)…
The S&P 600 and Russell 2000 have outperformed the S&P 500 by close to 10% since July 9. Small caps typically outperform in the early stages of economic expansions when growth is accelerating, demand-driven inflation is rising and lending standards…
We calculate expected returns for several different US fixed income sectors with a focus on how municipal bonds stack up against the investment alternatives.
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) – a summary statistic of US economic data releases – decreased to 0.05 from 0.23, suggesting that the US economy cooled in June. Although the headline index surpassed expectations of a negative (below-average…
Export dynamics from small open economies are a good bellwether for global growth conditions. Taiwan export orders decelerated from 7.0% y/y to 3.1% in June, badly disappointing expectations of a double-digit growth rate and following two consecutive…
The yen rallied against most major currencies in July and has climbed close to 3.5% so far this month against the greenback. Resurfacing suspicion of central bank interventions to prop up the currency is one of the factors supporting this month’s strength.…
BCA Research’s Global Investment Strategy service remained tactically bullish on stocks for most of 2023, but shifted to neutral at the start of 2024, and downgraded stocks to underweight in late June. Its latest report fleshes out the team’s thinking in…
The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S. declined by 0.2% in June from May, marking the smallest decrease in the past three months. Year-over-year, the US LEI remained negative but less so compared to prior months, prompting The…
Don't buy the dip. The equity bull market is over. The US will enter a recession in late 2024 or in early 2025.
US initial unemployment insurance claims jumped this week and are now running above levels seen at this time of year in 2023, 2019 and 2018. We choose 2023, 2019 and 2018 as our benchmarks because the unemployment rate ran consistently below 4% in those…