Business Cycles
BCA Research's US Bond Strategy service continues to recommend a neutral allocation to TIPS for now, but with a bias to turn underweight. The team calculates a forecasted range for headline CPI inflation of 0.9% to 2.9% over the next 12 months. For core…
US jobless claims have been trending higher in recent weeks, confirming that labor market conditions are deteriorating. Initial claims came in slightly above consensus estimates on Thursday, increasing by 231 thousand versus expectations of a 220 thousand…
The latest house price data indicate that China's housing market remains weak. The prices of newly built homes across 70 medium and large Chinese cities declined by 0.4% m/m in October – a faster pace of decline than the 0.3% m/m drop registered in September…
The US retail sales release delivered a mixed signal about US consumption. Although the headline figure contracted by 0.1% m/m in October, it was better than expectations of a 0.3% m/m decline. Moreover, the September increase was revised up from 0.7% m/m to…
On the surface, the acceleration in Chinese retail sales and industrial production growth in October suggests that the economy is holding up. Retail sales expanded by 7.6% y/y last month – beating expectations of 7.0% y/y following a 5.5% y/y increase in…
The New York Fed's Empire Manufacturing Index unexpectedly returned to positive territory in November, climbing 14 points to its highest level since April. The headline index suggests that manufacturing activity is expanding in New York State – a positive…
According to BCA Research’s China Investment Strategy service, Chinese policymakers are facing the Impossible Trinity. When faced with rapid currency depreciation in August-September, the PBoC deliberately tightened liquidity and steered interest rates…
To the extent that US small businesses are typically more exposed to domestic economic conditions than larger firms, results of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends survey are instructive. One important trend is that the October survey results…
The ZEW survey of investor sentiment continues to send an optimistic signal. German sentiment jumped from -1.1 to +9.8 in November – its highest level since March and beating expectations of a smaller improvement to 5.0. Similarly, expectations for the Euro…
The DXY collapsed to a 2 ½ month low on Tuesday following the softer than anticipated CPI inflation release which prompted investors to bring forward their Fed rate cut expectations (see The Numbers). This marks an acceleration of a budding downtrend since…