United States

Authored by Daniel McAdams via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

At 8:30am on Friday, the BLS is expected to announce that in July the US created 180K jobs, down from 222K in June though still in line with the 6-month average of 180K, with the biggest downside risk a slowdown in durable manufacturing payrolls as auto production slumped.

Sellside expectations:

Earlier today Bloomberg posted the following chart comparing new vehicle sales in the United States to scrappage rates of old clunkers.  Now, what should immediately catch your eye (even without the huge red circle we felt compelled to add), is the fact that new car sales have been massively outstripping scrappage rates for the past 5 years.

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Increasingly, a number of influential people in Silicon Valley seem to think that Mark Zuckerberg will likely run for president of the United States one day. And some people, including myself, believe that he could indeed win. “He wants to be emperor” is a phrase that has become common among people who have known him over the years.

 

On one hand, credit investors have never had it better with IG credit spread at record tights and junk bond yields sliding to 3 year lows

On the other, and this is linked to the above, they have never been more nervous, and as the latest Bank of America credit investor survey shows, more worried about the Fed in general, and "Quantitative Failure" in particular.

But why, if as so many claim, the Fed has nothing to do with the the return of risk assets? Ignore that, it's rhetorical.