Archive for January, 2015

Still Rehabing Their Balance Sheet

Friday, January 30th, 2015

The WSJ is running an article which states that consumers are saving large chunks of the windfall they have received with the crash of energy prices. According to the story credit card company Visa suveyed cardholders and determined that consumers are saving about half of what has accrued to them ...

GDP Perspective

Friday, January 30th, 2015

Via Jay Morelock at FTN Financial: Quarter-over-quarter fluctuations in GDP contain a lot of noise, allowing economists and market pundits to pick and choose statistics to make their case for a strong or weak economy.  No matter how many times CNBC tells us the economy is strong – that we are ...

Secondary market Trading of Corporate Bonds: Still Heavy

Friday, January 30th, 2015

Via Bloomberg: IG CREDIT: Trading Volume Remains at Record High Levels 2015-01-30 10:46:26.974 GMT By Robert Elson (Bloomberg) -- Trace count for secondary trading ended at $19.2b vs $20.8b Wednesday, the highest session in the history of the Trace aggregates, vs $18.2b last Thursday. * $19.2b yday, 7th highest volume since Jan. 2005 * Previous days over $20b ...

What to Watch Today

Friday, January 30th, 2015

Via Bloomberg; WHAT TO WATCH: * (All times New York) Economic Data * 8:30am: Employment Cost Index, 4Q, est. 0.6% (prior 0.7%) * 8:30am: GDP Annualized, 4Q Advance, est. 3% (prior 5%) * Personal Consumption, 4Q, est. 4% (prior 3.2%) * GDP Price Index, 4Q, est. 0.9% (prior 1.4%) * Core PCE, 4Q, est. 1.1% (prior 1.4%) * Core ...

FX

Friday, January 30th, 2015

Via Marc Chandler at Brown Brothers Harriman: Danish and Russians Cut Rates - The Danish central bank cut its deposit rate again yesterday from -0.35% to -0.50%, the third cut in ten days - The Russian central bank surprised markets by cutting rates by 2 percentage points to 15.0% - Data out of Europe ...

Job Creation in 2014

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

A fully paid up subscriber sent this abstract of a research paper from the NBER which posits that the job gains in 2014 were a result of the decision by Congress in late 2013 to not reauthorize extensions of emergency unemployment benefits. Access to the full paper is available for $5. Via ...

Five Year Auction

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

Via CRT Capital: We are apprehensive about this morning's 5-year auction as the sector has recently pushed toward the yield lows and is only offering a modest outright concession. Moreover, with the WI suggesting the lowest yield for a new 5-year since May '13 we're cognizant that could prove a disincentive ...

What to Watch for Today

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

Via Bloomberg: WHAT TO WATCH: * (All times New York) Economic Data * 8:30am: Initial Jobless Claims, Jan. 24, est. 300k (prior 307k) * Continuing Claims, Jan. 17, est. 2.405m (prior 2.443m) * Continuing Claims, Jan. 17, est. 2.405m (prior 2.443m)</li></ul> * 9:45am: Bloomberg Consumer Comfort, Jan. 25 (prior 44.7) * 10:00am: Pending Home Sales m/m, Dec., est. 0.5% ...

Is the Global Economy Hooked on the US Dollar

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

This research piece was sent to me by Martin Enlund who is the author and Chief FX strategist at Nordea Markets. It is an interesting and worthwhile read. I apologize to Mr Enlund for leaving out some charts which do not translate well to my low rent blog. Via a fully ...

FX

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

Via Marc Chandler at Brown Brothers Harriman: Dollar Firmer after FOMC - The FOMC meeting was a non-event - German state CPI data started to come out - RBNZ kept rates steady at 3.5%, as expected, but introduced possibility of rates going either up or down - South Africa Reserve Bank meets and is ...