MADRID | The Corner | The dollar is set to rise, mostly as monetary policies of the Fed, ECB and BoJ are set to diverge dramatically, the greenback trend being intact and the cheap valuations, analysts at Barclays commented.
LONDON | By Keith Parker at Barclays | The recent risk aversion episode has raised concerns that global growth and inflation are continuing to fall. While the collapse in oil is flashing red, copper prices and industrial metals have had a more measured decline. Copper has historically been a good barometer for global production and is pointing to continued sluggish growth, but not another leg down.
ZURICH | By UBS analysts | Global investors have been big sellers of Europe ex-UK equities in September and also the last 12 weeks (Figure 1). And this doesn’t include the heavy sell-off in the last week. US Treasury data shows that US-based investors were net sellers of $14.3bn in June–the biggest month of selling since the collapse of Lehman’s in 2008. How far through the current correction are we? So far the European market is down 8% from its September peak–in-line with the average of 9.5% in Bull market corrections since 1975.
SAO PAOLO | By Marcus Nunces via Historinhas |Matt O´Brien has gone over to the “dark side” writing “Why is the recovery so weak? It’s the austerity, stupid.”: Welcome to Austerity U.S.A., where the deficit is back below 3 percent of GDP and growth is still disappointing—which aren’t unrelated facts. It started when the stimulus ran out. Then state and local governments had to balance their budgets amidst a still-weak economy. And finally, there was the debt ceiling deal with its staggered $2.1 trillion of cuts over the next decade.
MADRID | By Francisco López | The strength of the dollar –which is in maximum levels and has appreciated by almost 11% against the euro since January 2014, has started to cast doubt among market watchers. Some experts consider that such strong appreciation does not correspond to Janet Yellen’s cautious decisions or to the low inflation expectations at a global level, which leaves room to central banks to maintain loose monetary policies.
LONDON | By Rajiv Setia and Anshul Pradhan at Barclays | Developed rates markets rallied globally over the past week, led by the long end, largely in response to the across-the-board underperformance of risk-assets. Figure 1 shows changes in ED-implied rates on the day of the September FOMC meeting, as well as the change from pre-FOMC levels to now.
MADRID | The Corner | Latest published polls in Scotland, in which the rejection of independence is not at 53%, could reassure investors who fear political instability in the rest of Europe. Today will be scarce in macro data. Only wait for August final inflation data in Germany and France, and weekly U.S. jobs data. European stocks will look into Wall Street, which will be setting the pace.
MADRID |The Corner | After a meeting between Mariano Rajoy and Angela Merkel in Santiago de Compostela, the German chancellor gave her support to the candidature of the Spanish Economy Minister, Luis de Guindos, to succeed Jeroen Dijsselbloem as President of the Eurogroup. As Barclays analysts comment, “with Italy’s and France’s leftwing governments and UK in or out of the EU, Spain is now a more attractive partner.” Regarding Germany, Angela Merkel recognised that the crisis in Ukraine is damaging the German economy. Nevertheless, Merkel affirmed that she forecasts a good annual growth if nothing dramatic happens.
MADRID | The Corner | After two months of decline, US construction rebounds in July at the fastest pace in eight months. As the Commerce Department reported yesterday, the number of housing starts rose 15.7% in July compared to June, reaching an annualized figure of 1.09 million units, the highest in eight months. Meanwhile, applications for building permits in the same month also advanced 8.1% to an annual rate of 1.05 million, after drops of 3.1 percent in June and 5.1 percent in May. Notably the permits to build single-family homes, a segment that accounts for three quarters of the U.S. housing market, increased in July by 0.9% to an annualized figure of 640,000, the highest since December 2013. In addition, permits for units in buildings with five units or more rose 23.6% in July to an annual rate of 382,000, representing its highest growth rate since January 2006.
MADRID | By J. J. Fdez-Figares (LINK) | European and American stock markets closed yesterday up in a session of low activity and volatility. The good performance of Western stock markets occurred despite the set of macroeconomic figures published during the day in China, Europe and the USA, which pointed again to a global slowdown in economic growth. The only explanation we can find to the good performance of stock markets yesterday is precisely that investors have interpreted that as long as the growth of these economies remain weak, the central banks will be forced to maintain its current policy of monetary expansion, which provide liquidity to the system, something that equity markets consider positive.