Developed Countries
Euro Area inflation data surprised to the upside on Wednesday. According to preliminary data, although Germany’s harmonized headline CPI inflation rate fell from 6.5% y/y to 6.4% y/y in August, it nevertheless came in above consensus estimates calling for…
US Q2 GDP growth was revised down from 2.4% to 2.1% on a quarterly annualized basis, only slightly above Q1 growth of 2.0%. Although consumption was revised up by 0.1 percentage points to 1.7%, business spending grew at a slower pace than initially reported…
Consensus expectations for the US economy were bleak at the start of the year. In hindsight, this pessimism was excessive: real GDP expanded in the first two quarters of the year (see Country Focus). Similarly, the US Conference Board’s Coincident Economic…
After having sold off in the first five months of the year, the performance of small-cap stocks improved in June and July with the S&P 600 index gaining 13.9% in those two months. A broadening of the US equity rally – which earlier in the year was…
BCA Research’s US Bond Strategy service’s base case outlook calls for a modest curve steepening as wage growth and inflation fall. Odds are that the next big yield curve move will be a bull-steepening that coincides with the onset of the next recession and…
We comment on Jay Powell’s Jackson Hole speech and recommend shifting to a barbelled allocation along the Treasury curve.
The stock market’s pre-eminent growth sector is not US tech, it is French luxuries. No other sector can compare with French luxuries’ massive and sustained pricing power. The risk for French luxuries is not a China slowdown, the risk is that the structural increase in super-wealth comes to an end. If anything though, the coming disruption from generative AI will boost super-wealth. Ironically therefore, the best investment play on generative AI might be French luxuries.
On Tuesday, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) indicated that the US labor market continues to cool. It showed job openings fell to 8.827 million in July following a downwardly revised 9.165 million in June (down from the earlier estimate of…
The US and China agreed to hold trade talks more regularly on August 28, even as they fell short of establishing a strategic détente or general reduction of tensions. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visited Beijing and met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang…
On the surface, the latest uptick in the General Business Activity Index of the Dallas Fed’s Manufacturing Survey suggests that manufacturing activity is no longer deteriorating at an accelerating pace. The indicator rose by 2.8 points to -17.2 in August —…