Succinct summation of week’s events:
Positives:
1) Initial Jobless Claims fall to 358k, 12k less than expected and the 4 week average drops to 366k, the least since May ’08
2) Job Openings in monthly BLS data rise to match the highest since Sept ’08
3) MBA said avg 30 yr mortgage rate falls to new low of 4.05% and refi’s jump 9.4%
4) German Factory Orders in Dec rise a bit more than expected
5) China’s PPI moderates to a gain of just .7% y/o/y, the slowest rate since Nov ’09
6) Indonesia unexpectedly cuts rates to 5.75% while RBA and SK sit pat
Negatives:
1) Greece on brink, AGAIN, unemployment rate in Nov hits 20.9% from 18.2% in Oct
2) German exports in Dec, the main driver of their economy, falls 4.3% m/o/m vs an expected decline of just 1%, German IP falls 3% vs est of flat from Nov
3) Euros being redeposited with the ECB overnight remain around 500b, matching the amount borrowed under the LTRO
4) BoE votes for more QE, brings asset purchase program up to 325b pounds. The most famous English economist, John Maynard Keynes once said this in a book of his, “Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debaunch the currency. By continuing a process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens…while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some…Lenin was certainly right…The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose,”
5) US inflation expectations in TIPS continue to drift higher
6) Feb UoM confidence moderates 2.5 pts after Jan jump of 5,
7) Avg gallon of gasoline at the pump rises to most since Sept.
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