Business

For the 3rd month in a row, annual US spending growth has outpaced annual income growth (+4.2% spending vs +3.5% income).

However, both spending and income growth MoM disappointed (with incomes unchanged MoM - the weakest since Feb 2016).

Combine these two and the savings rate in November plunged to its lowest since March 2015.

Finally we note that Disposable Real Personal Income per Capita dropped from 39,292 to 39,247, increasing just 1.5% YoY - the weakest growth since 2014.

After suffering two record budgets shortfalls in 2015 and 2016 as a result of plunging oil prices, and which nearly brought both Saudi Arabia's economy and banking sector to a standstill, not to mention billions in unpaid state worker wages at least until generous foreign investors funded the Kingdom's imminent cash needs with its first, and massive, bond sale ever, today Saudi Arabia released it budget outlook for the next year.

Italy has now joined the “bail-in” crowd.

Monte dei Paschi di Siena is to be rescued by the Italian state using a new €20bn bailout package, as a last-gasp private sector rescue plan for the world’s oldest bank looked set to fail, forcing losses on bondholders.

The government rescue, which had long been resisted in Rome, is designed to draw a line under the slow-burn crisis in Italian banking that has alarmed investors and become the main source of concern for European financial regulators.

            Source: Financial Times

As confidence and sentiment measures soar to record highs post-Trump, the real economy is just not living up to expectations. The Fed's own "National Activity Index" tumbled to -0.27 in November - the lowest in 3 months (and 4th consecutive economic contraction).

CFNAI dropped to -0.27 in November as two of the four broad categories of the 85 indicators in the index decreasing in November...

In the third and final estimate of Q3 GDP, the BEA reported that real gross domestic product increased 3.5% in the third quarter of 2016, above the 3.3% expected . The growth rate was 0.3% higher than the “second” estimate released in November, when it printed 3.2%, and well above the first estimate of 2.9% from two months ago.