How is it possible? Below is the number of initial filings for unemployment insurance.
Five of the last six weeks, the exact same number. Effectively the same number in the last 11 weeks, except for the holiday weeks (President's Day and Easter). As highlighted by Jim Bianco, how is this statistically possible? --- Consider The US is a $28 trillion economy. It has 160 million workers. Initial claims for unemployment insurance are state programs, with 50 state rules, hundreds of offices, and 50 websites to file. Weather, seasonality, holidays, and economic vibrations drive the number of people filing claims from week to week. Yet this measure is so stable that it does not vary by even 1,000 applications a week. Just the number of applications incorrectly filed out every week should cause it to vary more than this...
Smaller companies generally spend a much higher % of their income on debt service, making them more sensitive to rising rates.
The interest coverage ratio (operating income / interest expense) for the small cap S&P 600 is 2.3 times vs. 7.6 times for the large cap sp500. Source: Charlie Bilello
According to Alfonso Peccatiello, a $1 trillion worth liquidity wave is about to be unleashed on the US economy!
He is not talking about Powell or the Fed. He is talking about Treasury Secretary Yellen unleashing a large sum of stimulus further boosting the US economy right before elections! How? By almost emptying a $1 trillion+ Treasury General Account!
China’s economy in the first quarter grew faster than expected, official data released Tuesday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed.
Gross domestic product in the January to March period grew 5.3% compared to a year ago, faster than the 4.6% growth expected by economists polled by Reuters, and compared to the 5.2% expansion in the fourth quarter of 2023. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, China’s GDP grew 1.6% in the first quarter, compared to a Reuters poll expectations of 1.4% and a revised fourth quarter expansion of 1.2%. Beijing has set a 2024 growth target of around 5%. https://lnkd.in/eNZgs7zp Source: CNBC
Getting to 2% YoY CPI by the end of 2024 means we need to average monthly CPI prints of 0.1% or less from here.
Source: Bespoke
Big Mac inflation vs. CPI... which one is right?
While many investors are more confused than ever looking at "CPI", whatever that is, the real inflation gauge is giving off a serious warning. Source: J-C Parets
In our 2024 "10 surprises 2024" (see link below), we had surprise #6: "What if inflation rises again?"
The idea here was that inflation could experience a second wave similar to that seen in the 70s and 80s. And this would lead inflationary assets (e.g., cyclical stocks) to catch up with deflationary assets (e.g. technology stocks). Below an uopdate chart (courtesy of HZ on X) taking into account yesterday's US cpi print... Has a second inflationary wave begun? https://lnkd.in/eDPyFa_9
Raoul Pal - Global Macro Investors (GMI) has shared this chart on X showing Global liquidity growing at a CAGR of 8%.
His view: "While everyone is worried about 3.5% inflation, the real issue is the ongoing 8% per annum debasement of currency, on top of inflation. Your hurdle rate to break even is around 12%, which is the 10-year average returns of the S&P 500...just to keep your purchasing power". Key takeaway: if you want to protect your purchasing power in a global monetary debasement, you have 3 choices: 1/ spend; 2/ invest into risk assets; 3/ invest into store of values
