An update from the euro zone’s fourth largest economy, which remains a bit of a smoldering hole—a monthly look at the ranks of the unemployed in Spain showed yet another slight improvement, with the number of people registering as unemployed declining by 2,475.
By many measures, Korea is doing incredibly well.
Brazil’s economy shrank 0.5% between the second and third quarters, data out today show, as protests raged, the currency tumbled and investment fell. It was the country’s largest quarterly economic contraction since the first quarter of 2009.
Just a few months ago, India was facing what seemed like a serious currency crisis. Over the prior year, the country had posted larger and larger current account deficits—meaning they bought much more from abroad than they sold. That made India more reliant on dwindling inflows of foreign money. (In general countries that have strong current account surpluses have appreciating currencies. And countries with deficits tend to have weaker currencies.) During the rupee’s worst moments, it was down about 25% against the US dollar.
It’s been a tremendous year for stock markets in large, developed economies.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. And, well, again. In the capitalist system, lending and debt are crucial to economic growth. And while these tools can be—and often are—abused, that doesn’t make them any less necessary.
The recent flurry of housing has suggested that the Federal Reserve’s dalliance with tapering, which started back in May, is cooling off a hot US market for single family homes. But new data out today offers a more muddled picture. Take a look:
With the third-quarter earnings season for American companies in the rearview window, the question is what did we learn? That is, aside from the fact that the overall numbers were, well, meh. The biggest standout was China, which appears to be coming up short in its role as the world’s growth driver.
Remember the taper? In a US congressional appearance on May 22, Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke startled the markets by suggesting the US central bank could start to ease up on its bond buying program “in the next few meetings.” That marked a major change from what the bond market had been expecting. As a result, bond prices fell, interest rates—which move in the opposite direction—rose and mortgage rates—which take their cues from bond yields—shot higher. Take a look:
The US jobs market is improving at a glacial pace. Still, the healing is real.
The structure of Germany’s economy has been a political football since the onset of the eurozone crisis. Keynesian-minded economy watchers think Germany needs to spend more and save less, focusing less on exports and more on imports to support broader European growth. For their part, German economic officials seem unswayed. But that may be changing.
Maybe it’s all the caffeine.
Pretty much everyone on Wall Street thought the taper was a done deal back in September.
Japanese automakers are hustling to make up for months of sales declines in China, driven in part by the 2012 political tensions between the two Asian economic giants.
Not only are they alive, US shoppers are kicking.
Japan’s exports are booming thanks to a weakened yen. But—in a central challenge to the government’s ongoing efforts to both boost its economy and manage its giant debt—the country’s trade deficit is rising because energy is costlier to import in yen terms.
Toys “R” Us might not have too many Christmases left, at least if you listen to what the bond market is saying.
To paraphrase disgraced US past presidential contender John Edwards, there are clearly two Europes. Or rather, there’s Europe and there’s Germany, the largest economy on the continent.
This is an asset bubble that is bound to end in tears.
We’re living in a golden age of ghost towns.
So the great de-leveraging—the mass movement of US consumers to pay down, pay off and default their way out from under unsustainable debt loads—seems to playing itself out.
Remember the great rebalancing of the global economy? Of course you don’t. It never happened.
While Federal Reserve vice chair Janet Yellen has made many speeches, her testimony today at a Senate confirmation hearing—slated to start at 10am Eastern Standard Time—will be one of the first times her voice will have the full, market-moving power of the Federal Reserve behind it. Nominated by President Obama to succeed current chairman Ben Bernanke once his term finishes in late January, the diminutive Yellen is arguably on the verge of becoming the most powerful woman in US history.
