Speaking through its mouthpiece Global Times, China has published its first reaction to "unpredictable" Trump's position as presumptive Republican nominee and their expectations of a Trump vs Clinton fight for The White House...
In a surprising development, the U.S. monthly international trade deficit decreased substantially in March 2016 from $47.0 billion in February (revised) to $40.4 billion in March, below the $41.2 billion expected, as exports declined by a modest $1.5 billion, a 0.9% drop to $176.62BN from $178.16BN in Feb. At the same time imports outright plunged by $8.1 billion, down 3.6% in March to $217.06BN from $225.13BN in Feb. Curiously this happened just as Canada announced a trade deficit of C$3.4 billion, the widest on record.
Despite a very modest beat of expectations US worker productivity fell for the 2nd quarter in a row (down 1.0% vs 1.3% QoQ), the two-quarter-average output per hour isdown 1.4% - the worst slump since 1993. Unit labor costs rose by a better than expected 4.1% (helped by a downwardly revised 2.7% rise in Q4), the highest since Q4 2014.
America’s productivity slump is the biggest in nearly a quarter century...
Teen retailer Aeropostale, a company once seen as a competitor to Abercrombie & Fitch, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing assets of $354 million and liabilities of $390 million. The company experienced an atrocious fiscal 2015, reporting a net loss of $136.9 million in a year in which sales declined 18%.
Two days ago, when looking at the latest "Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices", we showed that Fed lending standards had tightened for the third quarter in a row, and pointed out that in recent history this has never happened without either a default cycle, or a recession, following immediately after.