Some time in the second week of February, when the market was tumbling on, among other things, fears of a U.S. recession, the Atlanta Fed was scrambling to give the all clear signal on the US economy when it surprised watchers by releasing a far stronger than consensus Q1 GDP nowcast of 2.7%.
Submitted by Joseph Calhoun via Alhambra Investment Partners,
Authored by John Mauldin of MauldinEconomics.com,
Dear Donald and Hillary:
In around ten months, one of you will wake up as Mr. or Mrs. President. After the fabulous fun of post-inaugural balls, you will walk into the Oval Office on Saturday, January 22 and launch into your first 90 days in office.
During these days, you will want to deliver on as many of your promises as possible. But instead of shadowboxing with hypothetical futures on a debate stage, you’re going to be up against cold, hard reality.
Following yesterday's dollar spike which topped the longest rally in the greenback in one month, the prevailing trade overnight has been more of the same, and in the last session of this holiday shortened week we have seen the USD rise for the fifth consecutive day on concerns the suddenly hawkish Fed (at least as long as the S&P is above 2000) may hike sooner than expected, which in turn has pressured WTI below $39 earlier in the session, and leading to weakness across virtually all global risk assets.
Chang and Eng – The US and Canada
Written and submitted by Jeff Thomas (CLICK FOR ORIGINAL)
Chang and Eng were the first internationally known “Siamese twins”, as a result of their having been exhibited worldwide. Although each had a complete body, they were joined together at the sternum.