BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Shanghai. In January 2024, BRICS expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina was on track to join but withdrew its application. BRICS has evolved as a combination of US allies, non-allied
After an aggressive tightening cycle, 152 central banks around the world expect to cut rates in 2024, including the Fed. Based on history, rate cuts are NOT bullish for the US stock market.
Well, no one saw that coming… The New York Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey for January crashed from -14.5 to -43.7 – the worst print in the survey’s history outside of the COVID lockdowns… Source: Bloomberg The -43.7 print was a stunning 10 standard deviations below expectations of a bounce to -5.0… Source: Bloomberg Under
On December 13 the financial world was stunned when, just two weeks after Jerome Powell had said he it was “premature” to speculate on rate cuts, the Federal Reserve did a shocking U-turn and pivoted dovishly, ending the Fed’s hiking cycle with inflation still running at double the Fed’s target of 2%, and said that
Milei in Davos 2024: Summary in 20 quotes 1: “Today I am here to tell you that the western world is in danger, and it’s in danger because those who are supposed to defend the values of the west are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism, and thereby to
The U.S. stock market’s lackluster performance to date in 2024 has felt anti-climactic, coming off the dramatic surge at the end of 2023. Still, investors seem confident the U.S. economy will achieve a “soft landing” and the Federal Reserve will successfully tame inflation. As such, the equity market remains complacent, with investors’ lofty expectations leaving
Philly Fed for Jan comes in at -10.6 vs -6.7 estimate and prior month reading revised lower to -12.8 from -10.5 originally. Contrary to Empire, Philly shows future activity declined from +12.6 in Dec to -4.0 in Jan, lowest since May.
[In] an absolutely baffling 2008-esque move, Powell and the powers that be seem to want to normalize banks with impaired balance sheets; or at the very least hide them among the healthy ones. The US is preparing a rule that would force banks to tap the Fed’s discount window for emergency loans, even if they
TOY is a “Turn Of the Year” Barometer based on the S&P’s Nov19-Jan19 performance. The 2024 TOY is 7.22%. Since 1950 if TOY was > 3%, the next year (Jan19-Jan19) was 35-2 for an avg 16.5% gain with 2 single digit losses. Feb-April is 32-5 for an avg 3 mt gain of 4.23%