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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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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Global economic growth is clearly slowing down.

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Mostly unchanged from April…

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S&P affirmed U.S. credit rating – AAA (long term), but changed outlook from stable to negative.

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I have lost flair in making predictions. I even started to think that correct forecasting is impossible. Maybe it is better to look at forecasting only as to the extent “what if” exercise. That’s why this is the first strategy post this year.

I have to come to conclusion that the only relevant judgement on is made by market and this is the key in being a successful in this line of business. What is fair, what is right or what is logical are completely irrelevant questions in speculating. Fundamentals are most of the time only a peripheral factors affecting the prices; in fact fundamentals are major factor only in times of great excesses.

Now, lets get back to writing down my current mind setup.

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In the last months global economic outlook has improved a bit. In U.S. we can see signs of personal consumption and manufacturing activity growing at soft rates, but growing; at the same time employment, housing, construction spending, durable goods orders are stagnating. Fall in initial jobless claims is clearly being offset by inflow of people into the workforce; job creation still weak.

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Summary: Economy is barely expanding at a sustainable pace; Will print more money if needed.

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I’ll interrupt my blogging silence with a short update on markets. Usual service continues as scheduled on Monday.

Looks we have trading themes reversing course.

Market summary: Shanghai down; U.S. Dollar up; PIGS spreads record wide…

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In the last month global economic outlook has improved a bit. In U.S. we can see some signs of retail sales and manufacturing activity growing at soft rates, but growing; at the same time employment, housing, construction spending, durable goods orders are stagnating. Recent fall in initial jobless claims has to be confirmed this week as […]

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This months strategy is a little bit late because your favorite blogger is feeling (a bit) nihilistic in the last weeks. We have had a nice run in September in almost all asset classes. Reasons: recent economic data is not deteriorating as fast as feared and the central bankers determination to extend monetary stimulus is stronger […]

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No surprise they intervened, only the scale of the exchange rate move is somewhat surprising to me. Nice candle. Yen strengthening was the result of China increasing its portion of foreign currency reserves held in Japanese Yen, probably attempting to soften U.S. anger over China exchange rate policy by causing problems elsewhere. The world of competitive debasement continues, probably with increased intensity; they will […]

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Equities Economic data released in recent month or so is on a absolute and relative basis weak. The difference from July is that the consensus has moved downwards, so the markets focuses on comparing actual data with consensus and disregarding absolute levels. But we are here to earn some money, not waste our time on […]

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Equities Economic data released in recent month or so is dominated by bellow consensus readings and on absolute level pointing to only marginal and slowing growth. Consumer demand proxies point to deceasing level of consumer demand. Unemployment is high and it is not falling. The government stimulus is wearing off. But the market is rising despite all of that […]

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Almost unchanged from June. Equities Only extremely favorable economic data could change the negative trend established. This is highly unlikely. So I would say we will soon see S&P 500 at 875. On a macro level, the stimulus is wearing off, politicians and central bankers are not ready to continue with loose fiscal an monetary policies, just the opposite, austerity is the game. […]

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