Overheard at today's Intel Official hearing...
An extremely volatile day in FX markets highlights the sensitivities ahead of tomorrow...
But there was on driver for today's gains...
In the latest red flag for the US economy, moments ago the Fed reported that consumer credit for the month of April rose a paltry $8.2 billion, barely half the consensus estimate of $15.5 billion, and 40% of march's $19.5 billion. This was the lowest monthly increase in consumer credit going back nearly 6 years to August 2011. The increasingly obvious downward trendline in crediting is hardly indicative of a confident consumer.
While revolving, i.e. credit card, debt rose a modest $1.5 billion, far below the increase in the prior two months...
Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,
Just when you thought there couldn’t be any more oil in Texas … new technology is about to unlock an extremely shallow field that is brimming with heavy oil that has been impossible to recover--until now.
Many oil companies have spent many millions of dollars trying to unlock this gem, but expensive steam injections weren’t efficient enough to make it competitive or economic, even if they had succeeded.
Citing expectations of notable slowing in economic growth andconcerns about fiscal and current account deficits widening, S&P has downgraded Qatar from AA to AA- as credit risk premia hit 2017 highs.
Qatar credit risk is at 2017 highs (but remains well below Jan 2016 recent highs...
Full Statement from S&P...
For all the talk about the various "tools" in central bankers' arsenals to influence monetary policy, to manipulate stock markets and to soak up global bonds (they now hold more than a third of the total $54 trillion in in global bonds), the fundamental - and very simple - purpose of any "developed" central bank is one: to restore and boost consumer (and in recent years investor) confidence during times of stress, promoting a vibrant economy in which the velocity of money is high, where commerce and economic transactions are ample, and where inflation (at least in a Keynesian world) is suff