Business

The euro stumbled, dropping to session lows on Thursday after Eurostat reported that despite a welcome decline in Europe's unemployment rate to 8.8%, the lowest level in 9 years, Eurozone inflation missed expectations, rising from 1.4% to 1.5%, below the 1.6% consensus expectations, reminding the ECB that Phillips curves around the globe remain broken and that its intention to taper QE and tighten monetary policy may yet be derailed.

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

I managed a track and field in team in high school. I was not the team coach, I was a student-manager who helped out with equipment, scheduling, training and other logistics.

Back in the days before internet I was the kid in the locker room phoning in athlete times and results to the local newspapers before the deadline for the next day’s edition.

Last month, we discussed how Frankfurt was emerging as the clear winner. When UBS staff were asked to rank which city they would prefer to be relocated to, their options were Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Madrid. Our top picks would have been Paris and Dublin, which didn’t even make the short list. On 19 October 2017, Goldman’s Chairman, Lloyd Blankfein, garnered lots of media attention after he tweeted.

"Just left Frankfurt. Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I'll be spending a lot more time there. #Brexit."

While online spending surged, the overall picture for Thanksgiving weekend spending was more mixed as the traditional “bricks and mortar” retailers continued to struggle. Nevertheless, overall spending was about 4% higher. The National Retail Foundation (NRF) estimated that 174 million Americans shopped online or in stores over the period (Thursday to Monday), versus 164 million the previous year, although the latter excluded Cyber Monday. According to Bloomberg.

Former Goldmanite and current Minneapolis Fed president, Neel Kashkari, conducted another #AskNeel session on Twitter where the dovish FOMC voter (he was the only one to dissent to the Fed's rate hike decision earlier this year) received numerous questions. Among them was the following one from Zero Hedge: