Straight from the Desk

Syz the moment

Live feeds, charts, breaking stories, all day long.

31 Jul 2023

More than half of the major markets in the Bloomberg World Index are now recording positive breadth signals.

Source: Bloomberg, Gina Martin Adams

28 Jul 2023

As a reminder...

Source: Mac10

28 Jul 2023

The power of loyalty

Source: Compounding Quality

27 Jul 2023

Latest outlook from IMF shows expectation for global growth this year up to +3% year/year

2024 growth also at +3% … expectation is for U.S. to grow 1.8% this year, 0.2%-point increase from April; China expected to grow 5.2%, unchanged from April. Source: Bloomberg, Liz Ann Sonders

26 Jul 2023

Albert Edwards from SG explains in one chart why this time is different and how the rise #interestrates hasn't triggered a recession yet.

Indeed, as shown on the chart below, Corporate NET interest payments as a % of post-tax economic profits (red line) has been going DOWN despite Fed Funds (black line) going UP! Edwards frames it as such: "We can see clearly from the Fed’s Z1 (table L103) that the US corporate sector is a massive net borrower. Normally when interest rates rise, so too do net debt payments, squeezing profit margins and slowing the economy. BUT NOT THIS TIME. Corporate net interest payments have instead collapsed (...) something very strange has happened, and it helps explain the recession’s tardy." So what has happened? As Edwards concludes, a sizeable proportion of the "huge, fixed rate borrowings during 2020/21 still survives on company balance sheets in variable rate deposits" meaning that corporations continue to benefit from locking in the ultra low rates of 2020 and 2021 even as their cash interest income are soaring. Indeed, as the SocGen strategist adds, "companies have effectively played the yield curve in reverse and become net beneficiaries of higher rates, adding 5% to profits over the last year instead of deducting 10%+ from profits as usual". Putting it all together, Edwards says that "it’s not just ‘Greedflation’ that has boosted US profit margins and delayed the recession (...) Interest rates simply aren’t working as they once did. It is indeed a mad, mad world" Source: www.zerohedge.com, SocGen

24 Jul 2023

Beware "no landing" is nothing new

Source: Michel A.Arouet

24 Jul 2023

Remember the debt ceiling crisis?

Source: Charlie Bilello

24 Jul 2023

Ever so quietly under the covers of a quiet summer week, US Macro data surprised to the downside, with the biggest weekly drop since Feb 2019...

Source: Bloomberg, www.zerohedge.com

Thinking out loud

Sign up for our weekly email highlighting the most popular posts.

Follow us

Thinking out loud

Investing with intelligence

Our latest research, commentary and market outlooks