Despite the ongoing propaganda reinforcing America's "cleanest sheets in a brothel" economic growth, the fact is, there is a reason why The Fed folded, why Draghi doubled-down, why China cut, and why Kuroda will likely unleash moar QQE this week. It appears the 'trap' that central planners have set for themselves - by enabling massive financial asset inflation in the face of what is now the longest streak of economic weakness and data disappointment on record - now looks set to prove their impotence and/or Enisteinian insanity.
As Ice Farm Capital notes,
a year ago were looking at 5yr inflation breakevens around 1.5%. They have since deteriorated to 1.15% (by way of 1%) and this week we are expecting a Q3 GDP print more like 1.5% -- a deceleration of a full 240bps.
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Corporate profit margins have taken a sharp hit and corporate profits for the S&P are now down 3% yoy despite continued share buybacks.
Through this entire period, markets have continually expected happy days to be just around the corner.
As a result, we have seen economic surprises for the US negative for the longest stretch in the history of the data series:
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2015 has been weak from the start
To make it a little clearer, this period of economic weakness and disappointment is not just the longest on record, but it is entirely unprecedented...
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Hike rates into that!! (Is it any wonder, the market's odds of a Dec rate hike remain at 34%, despite all the talk from The Sell-Side and The Fed that it is a live meeting)
Charts: Bloomberg and Ice Farm Capital
