MACRO Economy remain resilient but majority of economists are expecting things to start turning over. Financial conditions index has declined significantly, driven by higher yields, stronger dollar and increase in oil and energy costs. Discomfort is mostly caused by rates being over 5% and lags in the economy to fully reflect their impact. In addition economists worry about weakening consumer with depleting savings and moving up delinquencies rates. They point…

Macro Macro data remains inconsistent, with US remaining strong but global growth generally rolling over. Outside of US focus remains on the Chinese economy, with worrying decline in the households wealth (about 70% of which is linked to distressed property sector) and their rapidly falling propensity to consume. Government is pushing local authorities to increase infrastructure projects and sponsor them through bond issuance. For the US economy, concerns are mostly…

MACRO This week we had many headlines about risk of more sticky inflation caused by continuous wage growth. Investors are slowly loosing hope for return to easy monetary policy maintained for over a decade and start to see past years as an anomaly. Higher costs of capital becoming a new norm, and requiring companies to operate more efficiently. This can separate companies which are more productive and are able to…

MACRO Macro picture is still focused on inflationary pressures and slowing growth as the estimate of US GDP growth was revised down from 2.4% to 2.1% for Q2 23. On the supply side there are many inputs which cannot be directly impacted by fiscal or monetary policymakers. So far this year we had unwinding of some of the the supply shocks from the pandemic era. Supply bottle necks have been…

MACRO Financial health of a consumer is back in focus as the cumulative excess savings are in decline. If this excess savings turn negative, consumers will start to draw on credit, which with a current restrictive credit conditions and high interest rates may force them to significantly reduce consumption. Currently US consumer still remains resilient due to strength of the labor market. This month inflation and interest rates narrative has…

MACRO This weeks macro focus was on slowing growth in China, and how this may affect global economy. US consumer still remains strong with shrinking but still reasonably large cash reserves (10.6% of total household assets), above the pre-covid cash reserves (10.5% of assets), and significantly above pre-GFC reserves (9%). Student loan repayments starts in October and will affects 48 million consumers who need to start repaying over $200 per…