recovery

Get ready Angela Merkel, because you're about to face another anti-austerity push, only this time, the country "matters"...

"Using a dataset on developed market business cycles, we calculate that the unconditional odds that a six-year-old expansion will avoid recession for another four years—and mature into a 10-year-old expansion—are about 60%."

The ongoing failure of China to achieve any stabilization in its economy, after already cutting interest rates six times in the past year, and the prospect of a U.S. interest rate hike in December, had made markets increasingly jittery and worried which is not only why the S&P 500 Index had its biggest drop in a month, but thanks to the soaring dollar emerging market stocks are falling for a fourth day - led by China - bringing their decline in that period to almost 4 percent, and the global stock index down for a 5th consecutive day.

Those who choose to distance themselves (and their wealth – however large or small) geographically from the centre of the hurricane will fare best.

"Historically, the statistical or mathematical properties of the financial markets have shifted as the economic recovery nears full employment (i.e., at about the 5% unemployment rate the contemporary recovery has reached). Traditionally, at this point in the recovery, the stock market suffers more frequent declines, bond yields rise more often, average annualized returns from both asset classes are lower, diversification benefits tend to diminish, and recession risk is enhanced."

Repeated dosages of quantitative easing to kick-start economic recovery have proved totally ineffective everywhere. Yet central bankers are talking about doing it again – in larger amounts. The obsession with spending rather than saving has led governments everywhere to suppress interest rates to near zero. Under this destructive economic model governments are the worst offenders. In their craze to spend cheap money they allocate resources blindly into projects of dubious viability, for which there was no public demand in the first place. Result: huge taxpayer-borne losses.

If the US economy were actually in economic recovery, would half of the 25-year-old population be living with parents? The real job situation is so poor that young people are unable to form households.

We're gonna need a bigger buyback... As if "old tech" IBM was not in enough trouble, the worrying admission from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's earnings of around $2 billion (though careful to note he is not about to sell) has seemingly prompted further weakness. IBM is down almost 2% to fresh May 2010 lows...

• Global Stocks Slip Lower (WSJ)
• Dollar sits pretty, bond yields rise as Fed bets firm (Reuters)
• Takeover Loans Have Few Takers on Wall Street (WSJ)
• Chinese Buyers Seek Dollar Assets as Promise of Yuan Gains Fades (BBG)
• Banking Giants Learn Cost of Preventing Another Lehman Moment (BBG)
• Eurozone Finance Ministers Won’t Release $2.15 billion Loan to Greece (WSJ)

Once again, the two major macroeconomic announcements over the weekend came from China, where we first saw an unexpected, if still to be confirmed, increase in FX reserves, and then Chinese trade data once again disappointed tumbling by 6.9% while imports plunged 18.8%. So how did the market react? The Shanghai Composite Index rose for a fourth day and reached its highest since August 20because more bad data means more easing from the PBOC, and just to give what few investors are left the green light to come back into the pool, overnight Chinese brokers soared after Chinese IPOs returned after a 5 month hiatus. Elsewhere, Stocks and currencies in emerging markets slump on prospect of higher U.S. borrowing costs before year-end and after data underscored slowdown in Asia’s biggest economy. Euro strengthens.

Last week, we asked if silver would have a 14 handle again. This week, the market answered yes we can! How did we know? By looking at supply and demand.

According to the CEO of Maersk, the world's biggest container shipping company, "the world’s economy is growing at a slower pace than the International Monetary Fund and other large forecasters are predicting." Andersen adds that "we believe that global growth is slowing down. Trade is currently significantly weaker than it normally would be under the growth forecasts we see....we’re a little bit more pessimistic than most forecasters."

China's exports fell for the fourth consecutive month in October as evidence of collapsing global demand and trade continues to pile up. “A lot of Westerners think this helped us out a lot. But the 2% depreciation actually hurt us. It was in every newspaper and customers called us within hours pushing for 6% discount, so we had to give them 4%."

The potential outcomes are looking increasingly worrisome for financial markets across the board...

"Sluggish activity will spur firms to repurchase shares in an effort to boost EPS growth" - Goldman Sachs