Archive - Feb 16, 2011

Surging inflation? Check. Negative GDP growth? Check. Increasing unemployment? Check. Dropping wages? Check. Looks like we have a stagflation bingo. Per Bloomberg: "U.K. unemployment claims unexpectedly rose in January, underlining the fragility of the labor market a year after the economy emerged from recession and as public spending cuts start in earnest. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits rose 2,400 to 1.46 million, the Office for National Statistics in London said today. The median of 25 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 3,000 drop. Unemployment based on International Labour Organization methods rose by 44,000 in the fourth quarter to 2.49 million." And this is just the start of what real austerity means: "Prime Minister David Cameron is counting on hiring at private companies as his government embarks on budget cuts that will cost 330,000 public-sector jobs over the next four years." And more economic humor: "There is a risk unemployment could rise” this year, Philip Shaw, an economist at Investec Securities in London, said before today’s report. “It’s possible that the public-sector job cuts happen straight away and you don’t see a pickup in private-sector job creation.”" Coming soon to every centrally planned regime near you.

Meet Axel Weber's replacement

Housing starts, PPI, industrial production, and the FOMC minutes….Small 05/15/2021 – 11/15/2027 POMO for $1.5-$2.5 billion.

The patently obvious deterioration in housing just took one big step for the worse, after the Mortgage Banker Association reported that the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 9.5 percent on a seasonally
adjusted basis from one week earlier. The Refinance Index decreased
11.4 percent from the previous week and is the lowest Refinance Index
recorded in the survey
since the week ending July 3, 2009. The seasonally adjusted
Purchase Index decreased 5.9 percent from one week earlier. And for the obligatory quote that confirms that Ben Bernanke's plan to fix the economy by raising rates or something, is about to blow up: "Mortgage rates remained
above 5 percent last week, up almost a full percentage point from their
October lows, and refinance
volume continued to drop," said Michael Fratantoni, MBA's
Vice President of Research and Economics. "Applications for home
purchases also declined on a seasonally adjusted basis.  Buyers
have not returned to the market as rising rates have reduced
affordability, to some extent." Bottom line: few people care to refinance (which is also making the QE Lite component of QE redundant), and even fewer people want to buy homes. So, again, what recovery?

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 16/02/11

Increasing Inflation levels in the UK have led to strength in the GBP with analysts increasing the probability of an interest rate rise later in the year. Retail positioning however is quite contrary to this with increased short positions against the EUR, JPY and USD.

The market was down today as retail sales disappointed (thanks to the weather, a little something called rampant unemployment, and ...