After last week's key event, the retail sales number, which the market discounted as being too unrealistic (and overly seasonally adjusted) after printing at a 13 month high and attempting to refute the reality observed by countless retailers, this week has a quiet start today with no data of note due out of Europe and just Empire manufacturing (which moments ago missed badly) and the NAHB housing market index of note in the US session this morning.
Michael O’Leary was forthright, opinionated and humorous as ever today at a Bloomberg News conference where he warned that Brexit could lead to contagion. The CEO of one of Europe’s largest airlines said that the airline would be unlikely to diversify into gold, as it is in his eyes a “risky asset.”
Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary handed copy of ‘New Case For Gold’
The main risk over the weekend was that markets, which have now dropped for three consecutive weeks the longest negative streak since January, would focus their attention on the latest batch of negative Chinese economic news released over the weekend, which missed expectations across the board, most prominently in Retail Sales (10.1% vs. Exp. 10.6%, down from 10.5%) and Industrial Production (6.0% vs. Exp. 6.5% down from 6.8%), and following Friday's disappointing new credit loan data, would sell off as the Chinese slowdown once again becomes a dominant concern.
According to David Cameron, the poorest and most vulnerable people in the UK would be hit hardest by the economic consequences of leaving the EU. Leaving the union would be a “national error” Cameron wrote in an article for the Daily Mirror newspaper. He said leaving would see prices rise and threaten jobs, in a move that has been seen as an attempt to reach out to Labour voters. The BBC reports: The referendum takes place on 23 June, when voters in the UK will be asked whether they want the country to remain in, or leave, the European Union.