Macro The Middle East energy shock moved from geopolitical risk premium toward physical supply disruption this week, while global activity remained surprisingly resilient. Brent rose 8.65% Friday-to-Friday from $96.28 to $104.61/bbl and reached $109.97 intraday, while WTI gained 9.37% to $100.05. Iranian exports remain a fraction of their pre-war 1.5-1.7 mb/d level, Saudi Arabia closed the East-West pipeline after drone attacks from Iraq, Hormuz remains under active military contest, and…

Macro Global growth remained resilient, led by a renewed acceleration in US activity, but the underlying labor data were firm rather than unequivocally inflationary. US payrolls increased by 162,000 in August against 55,000 expected, unemployment held at 4.1%, participation rose to 61.6% and average weekly hours increased to 34.4. Average hourly earnings advanced 0.27% month-on-month and 3.09% year-on-year, showing no renewed wage acceleration. Hiring was concentrated: food services added 59,000…

Macro The US growth-inflation mix deteriorated at the margin, although the apparent stickiness in PCE may overstate underlying inflation pressure. Core PCE rose to 3.34% YoY and headline PCE to 3.70%, while real consumption was flat, retail sales fell 0.6% MoM and Chicago PMI dropped to 47.1. However, core PCE is now 88bps above core CPI, largely because PCE contains a small number of unusually large price increases: the gap…

Macro The global macro backdrop remained resilient but increasingly uneven, while the renewed Iran and Hormuz shock materially raised the inflation tail risk. Brent rose 6.6%, from $88.52 to $94.39/bbl, and briefly approached $95, after the US-Iran MOU expired on Aug. 18 without replacement, Trump ruled out ongoing talks, the UAE cut economic ties with Tehran and China-linked tankers reversed course in Hormuz. Actual supply disruption remained less severe than…

Macro The US data mix turned materially less hawkish. July payrolls fell 23k vs +80k expected, compounded by 103k of downward revisions to May/June; unemployment nevertheless fell to 4.1% vs 4.2% expected, partly reflecting weaker participation, while initial claims rose to 209k. Inflation simultaneously moderated as the energy shock faded: headline CPI slowed to 3.4% YoY from 3.5%, core CPI to 2.5% from 2.6%, with core +0.2% MoM, matching its…

Rates Treasuries rallied across the curve, partially reversing the previous week’s post-FOMC selloff. The 2Y fell 9.6 bps to 4.20%, 5Y −9.7 bps to 4.354%, 10Y −9.0 bps to 4.65%, and 30Y −7.3 bps to 5.20%. The curve bull-steepened modestly, with 2s10s widening by 0.6 bps to 45.0 bps, 5s30s by 2.4 bps to 84.9 bps, and 2s30s by 2.5 bps to 100.6 bps. More important than the direction was…