Global Macro Perspectives
Looks like markets are dismissing the potential Dubai World default as a catalyst for a meaningful correction. Nice outline of the situation by Telegraph: Dubai’s financial crisis: a Q&A. If the markets dismiss this as a not strong enough catalyst it will show the strength of the belief of the global economy is recovering. I […]
A lot of economic announcements from China today. So, let’s start. China’s industrial production rose 16.1% in October from a year before following 13.9% rise in September. The export decline slowed to 13.8% in October (year-on-year). If we adjust for holidays, it was down only 9.1% . The trade surplus rose to 23.99 billion USD […]
…at least for one trading session. Belisarius was occupied with his new firm in last few days so his blog suffered a little; now he’s back fully operational. Back to the theme; yesterday someone took a large position in gold and surprisingly moved the precious metal up on a positive dollar day. Media and blogosphere are full of various theories and reasons for the action. From India’s central bank buying MMF gold (Bloomberg story: IMF Sells Gold to India, First Sale in Nine Years) to “informed” buyer taking the position ahead of today FED interest rate decision/statement and rumors of big financial institution in trouble.
Housing starts rose 0.5% in September to 590k units vs. 615k consensus representing 2.8% growth. August data was revised down from 598k units reported last month to 587k units. If we take this into account the consensus was projecting 4.7 increase; and the reported figure was 0.5%. Bloomberg link: Housing Starts in U.S. Increased Less Than Forecast.
Interesting action with the VIX yesterday, break out to the 52 weeks low and then rebound to the upside. Looks someone was buying insurance after the run yesterday.
hina’s export decline slowed to 15.2% YoY in September from 23.4% in August and 21% consensus. Positive surprise, but still far away from +25% pre-crisis levels. As usual equities and commodities are trading higher on the news; U.S. dolar lower.
The earnings announcement stream continues. Intel posted EPS of $0.33 vs $0.28 consensus. Revenue at $9.4 billion down 7.8% compared with the same period last year. The consensus was at $9.06 billion. More from Reuters: Intel quarterly results beat Street. The earnings season is proving to be what I wrote earlier “better than expected” earnings on cost cutting. It can’t go on indefinitely, we have to see some growth in revenue.
Lots of attention today to the declining dollar. Interesting article on that theme in the WSJ by David Malpass from the Encima Global LLC. WSJ link: The Weak-Dollar Threat to Prosperity.
The market just keeps on going on, you could think that it could go on even further. I would not be particularity surprised to see S&P 500 at 1200. We have equities rallying and at the same time declining US dollar and gold hitting nominally highest level ever.