Submitted by Aaron Chan via Medium.com,
Last week, we discussed the precarious state of the overstretched U.S. consumer and the spill-over effects of poor performance on the part of major retailers and other consumer discretionaries. In a nutshell, consumer credit growth appears to have reached its cycle-high and retail sales growth is beginning to flatline:
Following strikes over the unpopular French labor reform, that started over the weekend and crippled the French refining industry leading to gasoline shortages and rationing, things are about to get far more serious for the country whose economy has already been threatened with a sharp slowdown as a result of a relentless wave of labor unrest. According to Reuters, staff in France's 19 nuclear plants - which by definition we assume is essential - have voted to go on strike on Thursday as part of protests over a labour reform, according to a CGT union official.
Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
On December 10, 2014 the city of Detroit exited bankruptcy.
It was the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history.
The bondholders were totally screwed in favor of the pensioners (not that I generally like bondholders).
Regardless, everything was supposed to be fixed. It wasn’t.
Please consider Detroit Picks Firm to Help Fix $195M Pension Shortfall.
Despite US equity investors' exuberance over bouncing crude oil prices, the world's crude producers continue to suffer and while Venezuela is in the headlines every day (having already collapsed into chaos), Nigeria appears the nearest to that abyss next. Having urged investors "don't panic" last year, and seeing dollar reserves drying up rapidly earlier this year, recent "lies" about the nation's statistics have raised fears of a looming devaluation as FX forwards have crashed to 291 Naira to the dollar (current peg is 199).
Following yesterday's surprisingly strong 2 Year auction, the US Treasury pulled off another blistering auction when moments ago it sold $34 billion in 5 year paper (Cusip R77), at a high yield of 1.395%, stopping through the when issued by 0.8 bps, a surprising outcome following two consecutive tailing auctions, with a Bid to Cover of 2.60, the highest since November 2014. Incidentally, the yield of 1.395% was lower than last month's 1.41% when June rate hike odds were in the single digits.