January 18th, 2012 by Belisarius
The consensus with which I agree is that the Euro zone is heading into a recession. While the economic activity has somewhat improved over the last months in the U.S. I remain doubtful whether the U.S. can escape the recession when Europe enters one. The data coming from China doesn’t (jet) point to a hard landing. For the time being it looks like that the Chinese government is in control. The measures to contain inflation and raising real-estate prices are successful, while in the same time China is has taken early steps to increase domestic consumption and re-balance the economy. One should not disregard and keep close watch on soft data coming from China especially in real estate and commodity related industries which are not reflected in the official data and could be pointing to serious issues.
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October 4th, 2011 by Belisarius
Leading economic indicators are pointing to a recession. At the time being it looks like it could be a mild one, but taken into account all the unknowns (EMU future, China slowdown, bank balance-sheet question) it could easily develop into something more ominous.
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May 7th, 2010 by Belisarius
After frustrating American and Asian sessions, looks like the markets have calmed down. After opening sharply lower European equities are trading at -0.6%. What to say on the U.S. action yesterday? Maybe only that the technology has evolved since Black Monday in 1987 and the trading programs were shut down (changed) very fast enabling the […]
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February 22nd, 2010 by Belisarius
Some interesting and controversial comments and predictions from Marc Faber in today’s media reports: Bloomberg story: China New Village Makes Chanos See Dubai 1,000 Times. “It does not make sense for China to build more empty buildings and add to capacities in industries where you already have overcapacity,” Faber told Bloomberg Television on Feb. 11. […]
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February 12th, 2010 by Belisarius
The initial jobless claims positively surprised declining 40.000 from the prior week and reaching 440.000. The consensus was at 467.000. It looks that combined with census hiring the positive cold continue. The markets yesterday closed positively yesterday on news that E.U. will back up Greece. The statement was obviously a product of lack of consensus. […]
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February 8th, 2010 by Belisarius
Markets still focus on Europe and in particular Greece. There are some rumors today that Unicredit and Deutsche bank have ceased to accept Greek government bonds as a collateral; there are also some rumors that the capital flight from Greece is reaching alarming levels. It looks the Greece story is approaching its climax and we […]
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February 5th, 2010 by Belisarius
As I wrote yesterday: Can’t See The Forest For The Trees; the EU deficit and debt problems are far smaller than for the U.S., particular U.S. states, U.K. and Japan. Jean- Claude Trichet seems to agree. Bloomberg story: Trichet Struggles to Convince on Euro-Area Solidity. Still, Trichet said the “solidity” of the euro area “is […]
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February 4th, 2010 by Belisarius
The market looks like today is just an intro. The 1.085 level broken, and technicians say the next target is 1.035 (I don’t believe in that, but since a lot of investors looks at that…). Beside bad initial jobless claims (480.000 vs. 455.000 consensus and 470.000 consensus) the main theme is PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, […]
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