What goes up (for no good reason) must come down (for fundamental and earnings-driven reality)...
The ISM bounce died too this morning...
Gold is also lower as bonds surge...
So after all that, the market finally sees through March payrolls.
With media attention squarely falling on the foreigners exposed by the Panama Papers offshore tax haven scandal, everyone has been asking for more information on who are the Americans involved in this biggest data leak in history. After all, as we showed, Mossack Fonseca had over 400 American clients. But who are they?
Today, courtesy of McClatchy, we get some answers: while there are no politicians of note are in files but plenty of others. Among them: Retirees, scammers, and tax evaders, all of whom found a use for secrecy of offshore companies.
One again it was a "good cop, bad cop" combination of the Markit and ISM service surveys.
First, it was Markit, which printed at the just barely expansionary Final March print 51.3, up from the preliminary 51.0, but the internals continued to deteriorate. As the chart below shows, and as the commentary confirms, the US service sector is barely hanging on by a thread.
Some of the highlights:
Must read thoughts from Richard Breslow, a former FX trader and fund manager who writes for Bloomberg
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco released a paper yesterday with a decidedly dour take on why market measures of inflation expectations remain in the tank. It’s a very relevant debate to have for several reasons.
China’s Gold Intent – ICBC Bank Reclassified as an LBMA Market Maker
ICBC Standard Bank, China and the world's largest bank, has been reclassified as a spot Market Making Member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) with effect from today according to a note posted on the LBMA website last night at 2100 GMT.
According to the post: