Since The Fed ended QE3, the world's FX markets have become increasingly turmoily as the loss of Janet's foot on the throat of volatility sends chaotic sprres through carry traders' P&L. In fact, after rising 6 days in a row amid Japanese Yen strength, Global FX rates are the most turbulent since January 2012.
Chart: Bloomberg
Submitted by Mish of
Goldman Sach’s Dubious Advice “Short Gold!”
Those betting against Goldman Sach’s retail investment advice have generally been on the right side of things.
The same thing is about to happen again.
“Short gold! Sell gold!” said Goldman’s head commodity trader, Jeff Currie, during a CNBC “Power Lunch” interview.
Currie’s advice was in response to the question “Is there any commodity you are recommending that can help our viewers make some money?”
After today's latest atrocious wholesale inventory and sales data, we predicted that this may be the straw that tips Q1 GDP into contraction, or at best keeps it unchanged, per the Atlanta Fed.
Atlanta Fed should be at 0.0% for Q1 GDP after this
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 8, 2016
We were wrong. Moments ago the Fed with the highly-tracked GDP estimator, slashed its Q1 GDP estimate... to 0.1%. As a reminder, this number was as high as 2.7% precisely two months ago.
Only in the new normal of manic algos and goal-seeked short-squeezes could actual news that Iran is undercutting OPEC by slashing prices to maintain market share be out-followed by hopefulness driven by upbeat comment from Janet Yellen (because she has nailed everyting so far) and more chatter about a production freeze (which makes no sense whatsoever given the Iran news). For now, WTI is trading above $39.50 ahead of today's rig count data, back at 2-week highs.
There was one thing keeping US GDP growing in recent months: rising inventory. Well, no more. Moments ago the Dept of Commerce reported the latest inventory data and following major historical revisions, not only was last month's inventory print slashes from 0.3% to -0.2%, but the February Inventory number was a dramatic -0.5% drop, far below the -0.2% expected.
This was the biggest sequential drop since the spring of 2013.
It wasn't just inventories: wholesale sales also declined by 0.2%. The ongoing declines refuse to paint a pretty picture of the US economy.