Government
Week Ahead – ECB set to pause tightening cycle, a big week for earnings
US Now that Fed Chair Powell signaled that the Federal Open Market Committee will keep rates on hold at the next policy meeting, Wall Street will look…
US
Now that Fed Chair Powell signaled that the Federal Open Market Committee will keep rates on hold at the next policy meeting, Wall Street will look to see how high growth will peak before the economy cools in Q4. Expectations are for the advance reading of Q3 GDP to rise from 2.1% to 4.3%. Investors will also want to see if the September income and spending data show the consumer is still in good shape, as both readings are expected to post 0.4% monthly gains.
Big earnings for the week will come from 3M, Alphabet, Amazon, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Boeing, Boston Scientific, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Chevron, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor, General Electric, General Motors, Hershey, Intel, International Business Machines, Merck, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Novartis, PG&E, United Parcel Service, United Rentals, Verizon Communications, Visa, and Volkswagen
Washington DC will remain in the spotlight as House Republicans continue to struggle to elect a new House speaker.
Eurozone
The ECB is expected to leave interest rates unchanged next week, as per the communication following its last meeting in September. The question for many traders is whether the central bank is in fact done or if it can be tempted into another increase. Recent moves in bond yields suggest investors are increasingly coming around to the idea of higher for longer. It will be interesting to see if the ECB addresses this or welcomes the recent moves. Flash PMIs will also be of interest considering the risk of recession going into next year.
UK
Delayed unemployment data and flash PMI surveys will be in focus next week. There’s still significant uncertainty around the UK from the sustainability of declining inflation – which Governor Bailey claimed will fall sharply in October – to high wages, weak retail sales, and the potential economic drag. Unemployment has been ticking higher in this time which may give the BoE comfort that wage growth will soon normalize. Central bank appearances later in the week will also be of interest.
Russia
Higher inflation is keeping up the pressure on the Russian central bank to raise rates, which it’s expected to do again next week, taking the Key Rate to 14% from 13%, currently. The rouble remains extremely weak so it may take more than a 1% increase to improve its fortunes and get inflation back under control.
South Africa
Inflation came in slightly above expectations in September and despite it still being well within the SARBs 3-6% target range, that will make policymakers a little uncomfortable. Against that backdrop, the PPI figures next week will be eyed for signs of further inflationary pressures in the pipeline.
Turkey
The focus next week will be on the CBRT rate decision, with there once more being a wide range of forecasts, but the consensus falling somewhere around a 5% hike. This comes amid inflation running at more than 60% in September and the lira continuing to hit record lows.
Switzerland
No major economic releases or events next week.
China
A quiet week on the economic calendar where we only have year-to-date industrial profits to September on Friday. It is expected to contract at a slower pace of -9% y/y versus -11.7% recorded in August.
The limelight will be on Country Garden, China’s biggest private property developer which is now in a “technical default” situation after it failed to honor the overdue coupon payments of US$15.4 million of an offshore dollar bond following its grace period which expired on 18 October. The focus now will be on the negotiation with its bondholders on restructuring the overdue coupon payments and the time taken for the company to deliver a blueprint.
Also, the grace period on another set of overdue coupon payments on offshore bonds is near expiration with one due on 27 October for US$40 million. A messy debt overhaul of Country Garden increases the systemic risk and social stability threat in China.
Several key earnings releases to take note of; CNOOC (Tuesday), China Life Insurance (Thursday), Sinopec (Thursday), China CITIC Bank (Thursday), Guangzhou Automobile (Thursday), China Construction Bank (Thursday), Agricultural Bank of China (Friday), Bank of China (Friday), China Merchants Bank (Friday), Ping An Insurance (Friday).
India
No key data releases.
Australia
On Tuesday, we will have flash manufacturing and services PMI numbers for October.
A rather hawkish rhetoric in the RBA minutes – in which one sentence stated, “the board has a low tolerance for a slow return of inflation to target than currently expected” – led to a jump in expectations of an interest rate hike in the next RBA meeting on 7 November. Based on data from the pricing of the ASX 30-day interbank cash rate futures as of 18 October, there’s a 23% chance (up from 3% a week ago) of an interest hike of 25 basis points (bps) to bring the official cash rate to 4.35% after a fourth consecutive pause in early October.
The release of Australia’s Q3 inflation data on Wednesday is likely to be pivotal in altering the expectations of a potential interest rate hike. A deceleration to 5.3% y/y is expected for Q3 from 6% in the previous quarter. The Q3 trimmed mean CPI is expected to fall to 5% y/y versus 5.9% in Q2.
However, the less lagging CPI indicator for September is expected to show another uptick in inflation to 5.4% versus 5.2% in August. That would be the second consecutive month of higher inflation which may put a hawkish RBA vibe back on the agenda.
New Zealand
ANZ-Roy consumer confidence data for October will be released on Friday where it is forecasted to decline to 82.6 from 86.4 in September. That would be the lowest reading since May 2023.
Japan
Flash manufacturing and services PMIs for October will be released on Tuesday with the former expected to improve slightly to 49 from 48.5 in September while growth in the latter is expected to dip slightly to 52.9 from 53.8.
On Friday, the leading Tokyo area inflation data for October is expected to show core CPI remaining at 2.5% y/y but growth in the core-core CPI (excluding fresh food and energy) dipping slightly to 2.2% y/y from 2.4%. That would be the slowest core-core inflationary growth in Tokyo since March 2023.
Singapore
A slew of key economic data releases starting on Monday with the CPI report for September. The headline inflation rate is expected to increase slightly to 4.2% y/y from 4% in August while the expectation for the core inflation rate is a dip to 3.1% y/y from 3.4%; a declining trend in place since May 2023.
Industrial production for September will be released on Thursday and a smaller contraction of -2.6% y/y is expected from -12.1% in August. That would be a significant improvement after it previously recorded its sharpest drop since November 2019.
On Friday, we have the preliminary Q3 unemployment rate which is expected to hold steady at 1.9%. PPI (factory gate prices) is expected to decline again in September at a rate of 3.0% y/y, almost the same pace as the -3.7% in August, and the softest since January 2023.
Economic Calendar
Sunday, Oct. 22
Economic Data/Events
Federal elections in Switzerland
Monday, Oct. 23
Economic Data/Events
Eurozone consumer confidence
Singapore CPI
Taiwan jobless rate, industrial production
Thailand customs trade
EU foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg
Japan PM Kishida delivers policy speech at Diet session
Singapore International Energy Week runs through Friday
Australia PM Albanese visits the US and meets with President Biden on Wednesday
Tuesday, Oct. 24
Economic Data/Events
US Flash PMIs
European Flash PMIs: Eurozone, Germany, France, and the UK
UK jobless claims, unemployment
Mexico international reserves
Megacap tech earnings from Microsoft and Alphabet
UN Security Council expected to discuss the Middle East situation
European Union expected to unveil plans for wind energy industry
RBA Gov Bullock speaks at the Commonwealth Bank Annual Conference in Sydney
Euro-area bank lending survey
International Energy Agency releases its World Energy Outlook annual report
Wednesday, Oct. 25
Economic Data/Events
US new home sales
Australia CPI
Canada rate decision: Expected to keep rates on hold at 5.00%
Germany IFO business climate
Russia industrial production
Hong Kong Chief Executive Lee delivers his second policy address
Thursday, Oct. 26
Economic Data/Events
ECB rate decision: Expected to keep main refinancing rate at 4.50%
US Advance Q3 GDP Q/Q: 4.3%e v 2.1% prior, Personal Consumption 3.7%e v 0.8% prior, Sept wholesale inventories, Sept durable goods, weekly initial jobless claims
Hong Kong trade
Mexico unemployment
Singapore industrial production, unemployment
South Korea GDP
Turkey rate decision: Expected to raise rates by 500bps to 35.00%
Earnings from Intel and Amazon
EU leaders summit in Brussels
Outgoing BOE’s Cunliffe speaks on cross-border payments in Washington
Friday, Oct. 27
Economic Data/Events
US personal spending and income, University of Michigan consumer sentiment, PCE Core Deflator
China industrial profits
Japan Tokyo CPI
Mexico trade
Russia rate decision: Policymakers will discuss the possibility of a further rate hike from the current level of 13%
Singapore home prices
Spain GDP
Earnings from Exxon
Sovereign Rating Updates
France (Fitch)
Sweden (Fitch)
Finland (S&P)
Sweden (S&P)
Belgium (Moody’s)
EFSF (Moody’s)
ESM (Moody’s)
Italy (DBRS)
recession unemployment consumer sentiment default bonds open market committee fed home sales euro governor recession gdp interest rates unemployment south korea singapore africa india mexico japan hong kong canada european uk france spain italy germany sweden russia eu chinaGovernment
Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19
Survey Shows Declining Concerns Among Americans About COVID-19
A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat"…
A new survey reveals that only 20% of Americans view covid-19 as "a major threat" to the health of the US population - a sharp decline from a high of 67% in July 2020.
What's more, the Pew Research Center survey conducted from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11 showed that just 10% of Americans are concerned that they will catch the disease and require hospitalization.
"This data represents a low ebb of public concern about the virus that reached its height in the summer and fall of 2020, when as many as two-thirds of Americans viewed COVID-19 as a major threat to public health," reads the report, which was published March 7.
According to the survey, half of the participants understand the significance of researchers and healthcare providers in understanding and treating long COVID - however 27% of participants consider this issue less important, while 22% of Americans are unaware of long COVID.
What's more, while Democrats were far more worried than Republicans in the past, that gap has narrowed significantly.
"In the pandemic’s first year, Democrats were routinely about 40 points more likely than Republicans to view the coronavirus as a major threat to the health of the U.S. population. This gap has waned as overall levels of concern have fallen," reads the report.
More via the Epoch Times;
The survey found that three in ten Democrats under 50 have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older.
Moreover, 66 percent of Democrats ages 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine, while only 24 percent of Republicans ages 65 and older have done so.
“This 42-point partisan gap is much wider now than at other points since the start of the outbreak. For instance, in August 2021, 93 percent of older Democrats and 78 percent of older Republicans said they had received all the shots needed to be fully vaccinated (a 15-point gap),” it noted.
COVID-19 No Longer an Emergency
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued its updated recommendations for the virus, which no longer require people to stay home for five days after testing positive for COVID-19.
The updated guidance recommends that people who contracted a respiratory virus stay home, and they can resume normal activities when their symptoms improve overall and their fever subsides for 24 hours without medication.
“We still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses, this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick,” CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement.
The CDC said that while the virus remains a threat, it is now less likely to cause severe illness because of widespread immunity and improved tools to prevent and treat the disease.
“Importantly, states and countries that have already adjusted recommended isolation times have not seen increased hospitalizations or deaths related to COVID-19,” it stated.
The federal government suspended its free at-home COVID-19 test program on March 8, according to a website set up by the government, following a decrease in COVID-19-related hospitalizations.
According to the CDC, hospitalization rates for COVID-19 and influenza diseases remain “elevated” but are decreasing in some parts of the United States.
International
Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says “I Would Support”
Rand Paul Teases Senate GOP Leader Run – Musk Says "I Would Support"
Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump…
Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul on Friday hinted that he may jump into the race to become the next Senate GOP leader, and Elon Musk was quick to support the idea. Republicans must find a successor for periodically malfunctioning Mitch McConnell, who recently announced he'll step down in November, though intending to keep his Senate seat until his term ends in January 2027, when he'd be within weeks of turning 86.
So far, the announced field consists of two quintessential establishment types: John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota. While John Barrasso's name had been thrown around as one of "The Three Johns" considered top contenders, the Wyoming senator on Tuesday said he'll instead seek the number two slot as party whip.
Paul used X to tease his potential bid for the position which -- if the GOP takes back the upper chamber in November -- could graduate from Minority Leader to Majority Leader. He started by telling his 5.1 million followers he'd had lots of people asking him about his interest in running...
Thousands of people have been asking if I'd run for Senate leadership...
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 8, 2024
...then followed up with a poll in which he predictably annihilated Cornyn and Thune, taking a 96% share as of Friday night, with the other two below 2% each.
????????️VOTE NOW ????️ ???? Who would you like to be the next Senate leader?
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 8, 2024
Elon Musk was quick to back the idea of Paul as GOP leader, while daring Cornyn and Thune to follow Paul's lead by throwing their names out for consideration by the Twitter-verse X-verse.
I would support Rand Paul and suspect that other candidates will not actually run polls out of concern for the results, but let’s see if they will!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 8, 2024
Paul has been a stalwart opponent of security-state mass surveillance, foreign interventionism -- to include shoveling billions of dollars into the proxy war in Ukraine -- and out-of-control spending in general. He demonstrated the latter passion on the Senate floor this week as he ridiculed the latest kick-the-can spending package:
This bill is an insult to the American people. The earmarks are all the wasteful spending that you could ever hope to see, and it should be defeated. Read more: https://t.co/Jt8K5iucA4 pic.twitter.com/I5okd4QgDg
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) March 8, 2024
In February, Paul used Senate rules to force his colleagues into a grueling Super Bowl weekend of votes, as he worked to derail a $95 billion foreign aid bill. "I think we should stay here as long as it takes,” said Paul. “If it takes a week or a month, I’ll force them to stay here to discuss why they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border.”
Don't expect a Majority Leader Paul to ditch the filibuster -- he's been a hardy user of the legislative delay tactic. In 2013, he spoke for 13 hours to fight the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director. In 2015, he orated for 10-and-a-half-hours to oppose extension of the Patriot Act.
Among the general public, Paul is probably best known as Capitol Hill's chief tormentor of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease during the Covid-19 pandemic. Paul says the evidence indicates the virus emerged from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology. He's accused Fauci and other members of the US government public health apparatus of evading questions about their funding of the Chinese lab's "gain of function" research, which takes natural viruses and morphs them into something more dangerous. Paul has pointedly said that Fauci committed perjury in congressional hearings and that he belongs in jail "without question."
Musk is neither the only nor the first noteworthy figure to back Paul for party leader. Just hours after McConnell announced his upcoming step-down from leadership, independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr voiced his support:
Mitch McConnell, who has served in the Senate for almost 40 years, announced he'll step down this November.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 28, 2024
Part of public service is about knowing when to usher in a new generation. It’s time to promote leaders in Washington, DC who won’t kowtow to the military contractors or…
In a testament to the extent to which the establishment recoils at the libertarian-minded Paul, mainstream media outlets -- which have been quick to report on other developments in the majority leader race -- pretended not to notice that Paul had signaled his interest in the job. More than 24 hours after Paul's test-the-waters tweet-fest began, not a single major outlet had brought it to the attention of their audience.
That may be his strongest endorsement yet.
Government
The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While “Waiting” For Deporation, Asylum
The Great Replacement Loophole: Illegal Immigrants Score 5-Year Work Benefit While "Waiting" For Deporation, Asylum
Over the past several…
Over the past several months we've pointed out that there has been zero job creation for native-born workers since the summer of 2018...
... and that since Joe Biden was sworn into office, most of the post-pandemic job gains the administration continuously brags about have gone foreign-born (read immigrants, mostly illegal ones) workers.
And while the left might find this data almost as verboten as FBI crime statistics - as it directly supports the so-called "great replacement theory" we're not supposed to discuss - it also coincides with record numbers of illegal crossings into the United States under Biden.
In short, the Biden administration opened the floodgates, 10 million illegal immigrants poured into the country, and most of the post-pandemic "jobs recovery" went to foreign-born workers, of which illegal immigrants represent the largest chunk.
'But Tyler, illegal immigrants can't possibly work in the United States whilst awaiting their asylum hearings,' one might hear from the peanut gallery. On the contrary: ever since Biden reversed a key aspect of Trump's labor policies, all illegal immigrants - even those awaiting deportation proceedings - have been given carte blanche to work while awaiting said proceedings for up to five years...
... something which even Elon Musk was shocked to learn.
Wow, learn something new every day https://t.co/8MDtEEZGam
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2024
Which leads us to another question: recall that the primary concern for the Biden admin for much of 2022 and 2023 was soaring prices, i.e., relentless inflation in general, and rising wages in particular, which in turn prompted even Goldman to admit two years ago that the diabolical wage-price spiral had been unleashed in the US (diabolical, because nothing absent a major economic shock, read recession or depression, can short-circuit it once it is in place).
Well, there is one other thing that can break the wage-price spiral loop: a flood of ultra-cheap illegal immigrant workers. But don't take our word for it: here is Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself during his February 60 Minutes interview:
PELLEY: Why was immigration important?
POWELL: Because, you know, immigrants come in, and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than native Americans do. But that's largely because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger.
PELLEY: Why is immigration so important to the economy?
POWELL: Well, first of all, immigration policy is not the Fed's job. The immigration policy of the United States is really important and really much under discussion right now, and that's none of our business. We don't set immigration policy. We don't comment on it.
I will say, over time, though, the U.S. economy has benefited from immigration. And, frankly, just in the last, year a big part of the story of the labor market coming back into better balance is immigration returning to levels that were more typical of the pre-pandemic era.
PELLEY: The country needed the workers.
POWELL: It did. And so, that's what's been happening.
Translation: Immigrants work hard, and Americans are lazy. But much more importantly, since illegal immigrants will work for any pay, and since Biden's Department of Homeland Security, via its Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency, has made it so illegal immigrants can work in the US perfectly legally for up to 5 years (if not more), one can argue that the flood of illegals through the southern border has been the primary reason why inflation - or rather mostly wage inflation, that all too critical component of the wage-price spiral - has moderated in in the past year, when the US labor market suddenly found itself flooded with millions of perfectly eligible workers, who just also happen to be illegal immigrants and thus have zero wage bargaining options.
None of this is to suggest that the relentless flood of immigrants into the US is not also driven by voting and census concerns - something Elon Musk has been pounding the table on in recent weeks, and has gone so far to call it "the biggest corruption of American democracy in the 21st century", but in retrospect, one can also argue that the only modest success the Biden admin has had in the past year - namely bringing inflation down from a torrid 9% annual rate to "only" 3% - has also been due to the millions of illegals he's imported into the country.
We would be remiss if we didn't also note that this so often carries catastrophic short-term consequences for the social fabric of the country (the Laken Riley fiasco being only the latest example), not to mention the far more dire long-term consequences for the future of the US - chief among them the trillions of dollars in debt the US will need to incur to pay for all those new illegal immigrants Democrat voters and low-paid workers. This is on top of the labor revolution that will kick in once AI leads to mass layoffs among high-paying, white-collar jobs, after which all those newly laid off native-born workers hoping to trade down to lower paying (if available) jobs will discover that hardened criminals from Honduras or Guatemala have already taken them, all thanks to Joe Biden.
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