Global Steel Production Update: China’s Property Crisis & Manufacturing Slowdown Trigger China’s Worst Ever 3-Year Drop of Steel Production, after Years of Blistering Growth by Wolf Richter • Jun 20, 2024 • 64 Comments US production of crude steel edged down further. Nucor Steel moved up to #15 globally. US Steel, #24, gets acquired by #4, Nippon Steel.
The Foreign Holders of the Ballooning US Debt: They’re Buying, But Don’t Keep Up by Wolf Richter • Jun 19, 2024 • 120 Comments As China dumps Treasury securities, the Euro Area, Canada, and financial centers load up with immense appetite.
The Collapse of the EV SPACs: Fisker Joins the Bankruptcy Party, Others on the Verge by Wolf Richter • Jun 19, 2024 • 107 Comments Consensual Hallucination drove that SPAC boom during the free-money era.
Our Drunken Sailors Bought Lots of Stuff at Retailers, including Vehicles, But at Prices that Fell from the Pandemic Spike by Wolf Richter • Jun 18, 2024 • 56 Comments Inflation-adjusted consumer spending & GDP will reflect that strength.
Hot Wage Growth Bedevils Wishlist for ECB Rate Cuts by Wolf Richter • Jun 17, 2024 • 41 Comments Wages jumped by 5.3% in the Euro Area, matching the prior record. The ECB pointed at wage growth as a risk to its inflation outlook.
Junta of Mega-Cap Stocks Rules. Rest of the Market? Russell 2000 Hits Jan 2021 Level, S&P 500 Equal Weight Hits Jan 2022 by Wolf Richter • Jun 15, 2024 • 132 Comments A market hooked on a handful of mega-cap stocks is a precarious place to be.
Rate-Cut Mania’s 20.7% Spike in French Stock Market Comes Home to Roost by Wolf Richter • Jun 14, 2024 • 54 Comments When stuff gets inflated like this, no one should be surprised when it gets deflated.
Fed Liabilities under QT Drop $1.71 Trillion, to $7.22 Trillion: Reserves, ON RRPs, Currency, TGA, Foreign Official RRPs by Wolf Richter • Jun 13, 2024 • 90 Comments The liquidity drain of Quantitative Tightening has come entirely from ON RRPs. Reserves have lots of liquidity left to drain.
Beneath the Skin of CPI Inflation: A Stunning Outlier Services CPI Drove Down Everything Else by Wolf Richter • Jun 12, 2024 • 131 Comments Services are big, and that one-month outlier was massive, and it drove down Core CPI and overall CPI.
Fed Sees Only 1 Rate Cut in 2024, Holds Rates at 5.50% Top of Range, QT Continues at Slower Pace as Announced in May by Wolf Richter • Jun 12, 2024 • 126 Comments Higher for longer becomes formalized one meeting at a time, as projections for “longer-run” federal funds rate keep getting raised.
