From News: “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” the man designated to become US national security adviser wrote to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and got a reply wishing him the same in return. Four days later, the US slapped sanctions on Russian intelligence services and kicked 35 officials out of the country in retaliation
From Citi: US-China trade relations haven’t yet appeared at the top of President Trump’s agenda, but it is likely to be a matter of time before this happens. One of the most consistent themes in Donald Trump’s comments on public policy over the past thirty years has been his opposition to persistent US trade
The US Appeal Court in San Francisco has ruled against Trump’s immigration plan, in what is a huge blow to Trump and his administration . Whether this is a markets story is one thing, but all eyes have to now fall on Trump’s Twitter feed. With the loss of the appeal there will be outrage,
The US dollar took off again last night: Commodity currencies took it in the team: Gold rallied anyway but it’ll get harder if DXY resumes its climb: Brent sagged: Base metals held up: Big miners rebounded: EM stocks were hit: High yield too: European spreads crashed back to earth: And stocks were roughly stable: Revenge
No nation has more at stake in Donald Trump’s north Asian policy than Japan. Perhaps that’s why it has been so quick off the mark in mastering America’s new strongman, via the FT: Japan’s government is pushing companies and investors to hand over details of their US investment plans so Shinzo Abe can deliver a
Mainstream media is in a panic about Donald Trump. Financial markets are pretty calm. So, what would it take to spook financial markets? US consumers / US small business owners are the key My take is that the small business sector is the key driver of US employment, the US consumer is the key driver
From Bill Evans at Westpac today: I have spent some time over the first week of my trip to the US with economists, officials and investors. The general view is that growth in the US will gradually build through 2017; 2018 and 2019. That will be supported by easing financial conditions (tighter credit spreads and
Friday night the USD was stable, all others were were strong: Commodity currencies were firm as well: Gold threatened to go higher: Brent too: But not base metals, which got flogged on Chinese tightening: So did big miners: EM stocks followed oil not China: Same with high yield: US bonds were bought: European spreads widened:
From Banking Day: The eager and even slipshod reporting on one executive act of US President Donald Trump at the end of last week may lead some to believe that the new and activist administration had taken material steps to wind back or abandon the bevy of financial regulations linked to the six year old
From Goldman: The Dollar is falling, shaking the conviction level of Dollar bulls. What is notable about this fall is that it coincides with broadly stable nominal rate differentials, in line with front-end market pricing for Fed hikes that is roughly unchanged since the start of 2017 , with about 125 bps priced through end-2019.
Goodness me, is this fake news? Via the WSJ: A draft of an executive order circulating in the Trump administration would dramatically expand the legal protections for individuals, organizations and employers on the grounds of their religious beliefs, potentially allowing the denial of services to gay and transgender people, and contraception coverage for employees. The
An excellent piece today from Nouriel Roubini at Project Syndicate captures precisely the MB house view for the next 18 months of the Trump “boom and bust”: When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, stock markets rallied impressively. Investors were initially giddy about Trump’s promises of fiscal stimulus, deregulation of energy, health
Last night the USD fell and other majors lifted: Commodity currencies lifted, the Aussie roared: Gold bounced again: Oil still wants to go higher: Base metals are in lock step: Miners fell: EM stocks fell: EM and US high yield was bid: Treasuries fell a little: European spreads tightened: And stocks just won’t sell off:
I agree with this: One of the nation’s top psychologists just broke one of his profession’s ethics rules to give President Donald Trump a professional diagnosis. John D. Gartner, a psychotherapist who teaches at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, told US News that he believes Trump has “malignant narcissism,” which is incurable, and different
No surprises last night as markets digested the Fed announcement to hold. DXY fell and other majors rose: Commodity currencies rose: Gold was stable: Oil looks strong, it may want to see more US shale. If so, it will get it: Base metals were flat: Emerging market stocks too: High yield debt fell: US bonds
Running through the numbers of the past week is not pretty for the long US trade. DXY has been getting pounded and other majors rebounding: Commodity currencies have been firm: Gold has rebounded: Brent is firm: Base metals want to break higher as the USD slumps: EM stocks have rebounded: And high yield debt: US
For anyone with a sensible and centrist outlook on policy, last year was a shocking shunt away from evidence-based government worldwide. This year has started even worse as President Donald Trump launches his Twitter agenda and the mainstream press beats every tweet into a catastrophe. Yet neither Donald Trump and the deglobalisation revolution, nor the
I admit that I fall for it. Time and again, a juicy piece of click-bait that invites me to be outraged at the latest Trump tweet, campaign speech and now (sadly) executive order. From an investor’s perspective you need to be wary though. News media knows that we will click and so will play to
Along with finally officially killing the TPP, President Trump trademark “you’re fired!” was enacted into reality as an executive order overnight, “freezing” Federal job hires (of course, exempting the military-industrial complex from any such fiscal tightening), which creates a small, but discernable problem for the Fed and NFP (non-farm payroll) watchers. As John Hussman, via
From Wilson Advisory: While we believe housing growth will continue, we have reduced our CY17/CY18 growth forecasts and increased our CY19 growth forecasts… Our forecasts for total US housing starts have declined by -10% to 1,244k starts for CY17. Forecasts have declined -12% in CY18 to 1,312k units and -9% in CY19 to 1,401k units.
From the WSJ: Trump would like to talk the USD lower. Just about every policy he has proposed will push the USD higher. Yellen is worried about “nasty surprises” if the Fed doesn’t raise rates. My money is on Trump’s actions having a greater effect than his words… Damien Klassen is Chief Investment Officer at
The WSJ has a piece out on the demographic effects of the baby boomers retiring: The largest generation in U.S. history has to start pulling its retirement money this year, kicking off a mandatory movement of cash that could total hundreds of billions in the coming decades. U.S. law requires anyone age 70 ½ or
As tensions heat up between President-elect Trump and the equally sensitive Chinese over trade policies that could lead to an all trade war, amid other problems arising from the “One-China” policy, the RBA is suggesting bring it on! In an interview to the WSJ, RBA board member Professor Ian Harper suggests any trade war would
There are a number of elements to Trump’s tax plan. Most of it involves cutting taxes on the richest and hoping that “trickle down” will sort everything out. I don’t think there will be a happy ending to that story. However, the tax plan is more complicated than that, especially at the corporate level –
This is going to be a LONG four years. A succinct synopsis from Greg Michalowski at Forexlive: He walked into the room late and stood on the side. A speaker spoke about how corrupt the press was – to the press – and then introduced the Vice President. He introduced the President-elect and there was
