Business

The market expected Mark Carney to avoid it but it was just not meant to be.

The BoE Governor will suffer the ignominy of a bizarre tradition of having to write a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining why UK inflation is more than 1.0% above the target of 2.0%. The market had expected the UK CPI to rise by a modest 0.2% month-on-month, taking the year-on-year rate up to 3.0%. Instead the month-on-month rate hit 0.3% pushing the annual rate to 3.1%, its highest rate since March 2012.

We like to highlight that although Sweden’s property bubble is not the longest running (that accolade goes to Australia at 55 years), it is probably the world’s biggest, even though it gets relatively little coverage in the mainstream financial media.

The optimism on world trade didn’t last very long.

In November, we discussed how the post-Party Congress measures to deleverage and crackdown on the worst abuses in China’s credit bubble took an important step forward with the announcement of a new era of regulation for China’s $15 trillion shadow banking and asset management industry. See "A New Era In Chinese Regulation Means Turmoil For $15 Trillion In China's Shadows". In particular, the authorities turned their sights on wealth management products (WMPs).

Despite daily affirmations from the White House that "everything is awesome" with the economy, 2017 has been a miserable year for retailers.  As Reorg First Day points out, over 30 retailers, with debt aggregating into the billions of dollars, have filed for bankruptcy so far this year...

After Shiekh Shoes' filing today, at least 30 retail chains have filed for chapter 11 relief thus far in 2017: pic.twitter.com/7cLZXXFecl

— Reorg First Day (@ReorgFirstDay) November 29, 2017