The Day Earth Was Murdered
Paul Craig Roberts
“Change you can believe in” disappeared in the early days of the Obama regime as the same Washington insiders filled the new government’s ranks. David Brooks sung the praises of those who made change impossible: “the best of the Washington insiders, Achievetrons who got double 800s on their SATs.”
Nearly half of all French voters have yet to decide who they want to be president with only a month to go until the election, an opinion poll showed on Friday, as scandal-hit conservative candidate Francois Fillon launched an extraordinary attack on Socialist President Francois Hollande, accusing him of orchestrating a plot against him. The big question therefore remains - Is a “European Spring” in the making?
Following Europe's surging PMIs (to six year highs), US data was extremely disappointing. Both Services and Manufacturing PMI disappointed, tumbling to the lowest levels since before the election. Simply put, the 'soft' data is converging back lower to the dismal reality of the 'hard' data.
Hope is hot in Europe...
And not in USA...
As Output slows dramatically..
Commenting on the flash PMI data, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit said:
The latest evidence that rumors of Trumpflation trade's death are not greatly exagerated came overnight from Bank of America which reported that based equity funds saw net outflows of $8.9 billion, the largest in 38 weeks. The most impacted sector was, not surprisingly, banks - the biggest beneficiary of the post-Trump election victory rally, which suffered the biggest outflows in over a year.
Asian shares and S&P futures rose on optimism that today's rescheduled U.S. vote on health care will pass following Trump's Ultimatum to the Freedom Caucus. European stocks gave up some of Thursday’s gains, falling for the fourth time in five days, and moving further away from a 15-month high reached a week ago while the yen weakened for the first time in nine days before the long awaited U.S. health-care vote that has dominated market sentiment this week. Oil was headed for a third weekly drop this month. Economic data include durable goods orders, Markit U.S. manufacturing PMI.