China

Some 'entertainers' among the mainstream media have proclaimed the recent dead-cat-bounce in The Baltic Dry Freight Index as representative of some renaissance in China and thus the world's trade.. and thus why one should "buy buy buy" stocks. However, three quick points of note suggest this is nothing but noise as the index flounders around record lows.

First, at 555, The Baltic Dry has just managed to rebound to its previous all-time historical lows from 1986... impressive eh?

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

By now, the only people in the world who are not aware that Vancouver has been overrun by Chinese "hot money-parking" oligarchs, who rush to buy any and every available real estate leading to such grotesque charts as the following showing the ridiculous surge in Vancouver real estate prices...

There was some good and some bad news in tonight's Chinese March inflation (and deflation in the case of PPI) data.

The good news, for those who believe that rising inflation is a positive economic outcome, was that Producer Prices declined "only" 4.3% Y/Y, or less than the -4.6% exoected, and better than the -4.9% drop last month. On a sequential basis, PPI rose by 0.5% on the back of various commodity input prices posting a modest increase in the past month on the back of China's epic January loan injection.

Submitted by $hane Obata

USD: Return Of The King

Falling oil prices, China growth fears, submerging markets, Brexit and Italian banks. All of those risks have one thing in common: They have not derailed the US economy. Despite concerns about a recession, it continues to grow at a steady pace. According to the Atlanta Fed, real GDP is expected to grow by 0.7% in Q1’16. That is not a great number; however, the series is extremely volatile.

sources: Bloomberg, @Not_Jim_Cramer