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Boeing's strike and its shrinking cash pile
Boeing’s corporate crisis has escalated into an existential cash-burn nightmare.
Half a point or a quarter?
Anniversary: Two years of calls, checked
Two years after this column launched amidst soaring inflation and aggressive rate increases, the macroeconomic landscape has completed a remarkable full circle.
The jobs numbers keep getting revised down
The August employment report delivered 142,000 new non-farm jobs—missing consensus expectations—while the previous two months were revised downward by an additional 86,000 positions.
Nobody's being fired. Nobody's being hired
The modern American labor market is characterized by a bizarre, low-velocity equilibrium: employers have ceased firing existing workers, but they have also virtually stopped hiring new ones.
Labor Day: Is the job market cracking?
As American workers celebrated Labor Day, the domestic labor market stood at a precarious cyclical crossroads.
Nvidia beats and still falls
Nvidia delivered a second-quarter financial report that would have been heralded as an unmitigated triumph for any other enterprise on earth: revenue surged 122 per cent to $30 billion, beating consensus expectations.
The yield curve un-inverts. Is that good news?
The US sovereign yield curve staged an important structural milestone on 5 August, as the spread between two-year and ten-year Treasury yields briefly turned positive for the first time since July 2022.
Is it finally time to cut?
The July consumer price index confirmed that the inflationary dragon has been subdued, with headline inflation dropping below three per cent to 2.9 per cent year-on-year for the first time since March 2021.
Buffett is sitting on $277bn of cash
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway delivered an unmistakable valuation signal to global markets in its second-quarter filings.
The carry trade that blew up
The violent global market dislocation of early August was not caused by geopolitical conflict or corporate insolvency; it was the mathematical unwinding of the global yen carry trade.
Wall Street's fear gauge hits 65. What happened?
Financial markets experienced a moment of acute systemic vertigo on Monday, 5 August.
The recession alarm goes off
The July employment report delivered a severe shock to financial markets, with payroll growth decelerating to 114,000 and the national unemployment rate jumping to 4.3 per cent.
Intel stops paying its dividend
Intel’s second-quarter earnings report will stand as a watershed moment in corporate decline.
Japan hikes into the world's most crowded trade
The Bank of Japan delivered a bold, surprising monetary strike on 31 July by raising its benchmark interest rate to 0.25 per cent and announcing plans to halve its monthly bond purchases.
Small caps soar as crowded bets unwind
A historic rotation has swept Wall Street’s trading desks.
Biden steps aside: what it means for the deficit
Joe Biden’s historic decision on 21 July to withdraw his candidacy for the presidency and endorse Kamala Harris has injected profound uncertainty into American fiscal projections.
CrowdStrike's outage: who pays?
A flawed software sensor update pushed by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike crashed an estimated 8.5 million Microsoft Windows systems worldwide on 19 July, paralyzing global airlines, hospital networks, and financial institutions.
Prime Day: The ad business behind the discounts
Amazon’s tenth annual Prime Day generated an estimated $14.2 billion in online sales, setting a fresh commercial record.
Japan steps in to save the yen
Tokyo’s currency authorities executed another aggressive foreign exchange intervention on 11 July, stepping in immediately following the release of softer-than-expected US consumer price inflation.
Prices fall for the first time since 2020
For the first time since the initial disruptions of the 2020 pandemic, the US headline consumer price index registered an outright month-on-month decline, falling 0.1 per cent in June.
Why tariffs won't fix the trade deficit
Protectionist dogma rests on a simple premise: taxing foreign imports will eliminate the trade deficit and restore domestic industrial supremacy.
Who actually pays a 10% tariff?
Donald Trump’s proposal to impose a universal baseline tariff of ten per cent on all foreign imports, alongside a sixty per cent levy on Chinese goods, has ignited fierce debate across corporate finance departments.
Independence Day: Is the dollar losing its crown?
As the United States celebrates Independence Day, the global financial architecture is quietly contemplating the durability of American monetary hegemony.
The "Trump trade" hits bonds
The 'Trump trade' has taken command of fixed-income trading desks.
How a presidential debate moves the bond market
The presidential debate on 27 June between Joe Biden and Donald Trump delivered a profound shock that reverberated far beyond political circles.
China's cheap EVs meet Europe's tariffs
The European Commission has officially drawn its trade battle lines, imposing provisional countervailing duties of up to 38.1 per cent on imports of Chinese battery electric vehicles (EVs).
Nvidia becomes the world's most valuable company
On 18 June, Nvidia achieved a corporate milestone that was unthinkable two years ago: it surpassed Microsoft to become the most valuable public corporation in the world, touching a staggering market valuation of $3.34 trillion.
Is France the eurozone's next crisis?
The spread between French ten-year sovereign debt and German Bunds has blown out to eighty basis points—its widest level since the sovereign debt crisis of 2012.
The Fed now sees just one cut
The Federal Open Market Committee delivered a cold bath of realism to interest rate optimists at its June gathering.
Macron's gamble spooks French bond markets
Emmanuel Macron’s shock decision to dissolve the National Assembly and call snap parliamentary elections following a crushing defeat in European elections sent European sovereign debt markets into an immediate panic.
Nvidia hits $3trn, and index funds are along for the ride
On 5 June, Nvidia crossed another monumental financial threshold, surpassing $3 trillion in market capitalization and overtaking Apple as the second most valuable corporation on earth.
What happens to the euro when the ECB cuts first
With euro short-term rate (€STR) futures pricing a near-certainty of a 25-basis-point rate cut at the European Central Bank’s 6 June meeting, foreign exchange desks are positioning for transatlantic divergence.
How far can Europe cut before the Fed does?
The European Central Bank is preparing to cross a monetary Rubicon.
America's deficit won't shrink
The Congressional Budget Office’s updated baseline confirms that the United States is operating on an unprecedented, structural fiscal trajectory.
Memorial Day: Petrol prices and the summer inflation bump
Memorial Day weekend traditionally marks the unofficial commencement of the American summer driving season, and with retail gasoline prices averaging roughly $3.59 per gallon, motorists are absorbing an unhedged holiday tax.
Nvidia's boom: peak or plateau?
Nvidia delivered another quarterly financial masterclass, with first-quarter data centre revenue surging to $22.6 billion—up an astonishing 427 per cent year-on-year.
The Treasury starts buying back its own debt
The US Treasury has officially launched an innovative liquidity-support mechanism: its first regular sovereign debt buyback programme since the early 2000s.
One soft inflation report: signal or noise?
Fixed-income markets experienced an immense wave of relief on 15 May, as the April consumer price index printed at 3.4 per cent year-on-year, while core prices slowed to 0.3 per cent month-on-month—the first deceleration in four months.
Are workers finally getting more productive?
The macroeconomic consensus has pinned its hopes on an artificial intelligence-driven productivity boom to deliver non-inflationary growth.
Apple's record $110bn buyback
Apple staged a masterclass in corporate financial engineering by announcing the largest share repurchase programme in American corporate history: an astounding $110 billion authorization, accompanied by a modest dividend increase.
The Fed slows its balance-sheet shrinking
At its May policy meeting, the Federal Reserve delivered an important structural adjustment to its monetary plumbing by announcing a substantial taper of its quantitative tightening (QT) programme.
How to spot Japan's secret yen buying
Tokyo’s foreign exchange authorities have adopted an asymmetric, stealthy approach to currency market management.
Slow growth, sticky prices: a whiff of stagflation
The first-quarter economic accounts delivered an uncomfortable combination of figures that evoked unpleasant memories of 1970s stagflation.
Meta spends more, investors flee
Mark Zuckerberg discovered that Wall Street’s patience with open-ended technology capex has strict boundaries.
The market gives up on rate cuts
The sovereign bond market has executed a brutal capitulation.
Three hot months: what the data now says
Macroeconomic analysts who dismissed January’s hot inflation figures as seasonal noise have run out of statistical excuses.
Powell admits cuts will take longer
Jerome Powell completed a significant rhetorical retreat on 16 April, officially acknowledging what bond markets had been pricing for weeks: that persistent inflation will delay prospective interest rate cuts.
