In normal times, which these are so blindingly not, today would be about the overnight run of China data, the UK labour report, the facile pointlessness of the rear view mirror of the German ZEW data, and the run of US NY Fed Manufacturing survey & Industrial Production, with Canada's 'loonie' paying some lip service to local Manufacturing Sales. To which one can add a soupcon of ECB speak from Panetta, the overnight RBA minutes, and a near 100% chance of no change policy decision from the Polish NBP's MPC, along with auctions in the UK (7 & 17 yr), Germany (7-yr) and US 20-yr. The latter would be generally viewed as 'off the run', but with govts borrowing in any and all maturities (still waiting on the 'perps'), these are mostly 'benchmarks', and will doubtless meet solid, if not strong demand. But these are 'Covid-19' times, there is no normal (new or old), there is fear, galaxy sized disruption, and too many opinion formers and leaders have much more in common with self-righteous, pompous and mendacious headless chickens, with planet sized egos that are always in need of coddling and sycophancy from those that form their entourage. Statesmen there are none, lateral and critical thinking along with debate is condemned as, and confused with, intolerant leftist propaganda, and the deficit on humility among the militant thugs that preach hate is larger than the rapid acceleration in the global debt mountain. The lesson of history is that mankind always muddles through somehow, even if the price in human terms has frequently been brutal, and the contempt for the broader populace a 24 carat Gold hallmark, along with the incessant barrage of populist rhetoric that fans fear and hateful speech and behaviour. The upcoming central bank meetings, political tensions of every hue, and markets' totemizing obsession with vaccines will again be the dominant features of the day, rather than the run of statistics.
** U.K. - July/August Labour data **
- The run of better than expected UK labour market data continues, but a) it is cleary very subordiante to the Brexit related political news, b) continues to paint very different pictures depending on the data set, and c) is in any case heavily distorted by the furlough scheme that expires at the end of October. Indeed the headline measures paint a healthier picture than the more brutal observation that Employment has fallen by 695K since March (down 102K on month), there are 2.7 Mln claiming unemployment (and other) benefits, up 120.8% since March, and there is another wave of layoffs (many already announced) in the pipeline. Vacancies currently stand at 434K, way down on the 700-800K which was typical in the past 3 years.
From Marc Ostwald