US Employment growth strengthened in February with businesses adding 313,000 new jobs. That pushed the three-month average up to 242,000 after a net of 54,000 jobs also revised job gains in December and January higher. Strength was widespread across industries, including gains of 50,000 in retail, 28,000 in financial services and 61,000 in construction, which [...]
US US factory sector data released this week showed another divergence between the “hard” and “soft” data. On the hard data front, private equipment spending looks to be cooling after increasing at a double-digit pace in the third and fourth quarters of 2017. Durable goods orders fell 3.7% in January, with much of the decline [...]
The British Investment Association issued guidelines that will address concerns about the transparency of forex trading, particularly with the use of ‘Last Look’. This is something that asset managers had been complaining about, since it potentially means banks can misuse trade information to gain an unfair advantage. This also means asset managers cannot serve their [...]
US US existing home sales disappointed again in January, falling 3.2% to a 5.38 million unit pace with sales declining in all four regions of the country. The sluggish pace of existing home sales is linked to the fact that supply remains historically low. The inventory of existing homes on the market rose in January [...]
US Headline US CPI increased 0.5% in January, and registered a 2.1% year-on-year increase. While energy prices played a large role in boosting the CPI, core CPI, excluding food and energy prices, rose 0.3%, the largest gain since last January. While the year-ago gain is unchanged from December, core CPI has increased at a 2.9% [...]
In this article, we analyse the disastrous ‘short vol’ trade that wiped out a lot of traders last week and draw some lessons learned from it. The VIX is the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index. It shows the expected 30-day volatility of the S&P 500 by calculating the implied volatilities on options relating [...]
US The ISM non-manufacturing index posted a solid rebound in January after service sector activity took a breather in November and December. The headline rose to hit a new cycle high of 59.9. The improvement in new orders was the main driver of the recovery, but the breadth of positive responses across industries was also [...]
Guest post by Vladimir Dimitroff with Dr Alexander Cassar. . . . It is impossible today to open any news source without a headline (or several) about Bitcoin and related matters jumping out at the reader and loudly demanding attention. It is no longer the domain of techno geeks or shady characters trading in illicit [...]
US The ISM manufacturing survey ticked down 0.2 points to 59.1, but new orders remained exceptionally strong and the backlog of unfilled orders increased. While the index declined slightly, it does not signal a slowing in manufacturing activity or the economy since the ISM survey is a diffusion index and measures the breadth of strength [...]
US Fourth quarter US GDP rose 2.6% on an annualised basis following the third quarter’s 3.2% rate of growth. An important measure of core demand, real final sales to private domestic purchasers, climbed to 4.6% on an annualised basis. One of the most impressive aspects of the GDP report was consumer spending, which rose 3.8% [...]
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