GLOBAL ECONOMICS AND POLITICS

Leo Haviland provides clients with original, provocative, cutting-edge fundamental supply/demand and technical research on major financial marketplaces and trends. He also offers independent consulting and risk management advice.

Haviland’s expertise is macro. He focuses on the intertwining of equity, debt, currency, and commodity arenas, including the political players, regulatory approaches, social factors, and rhetoric that affect them. In a changing and dynamic global economy, Haviland’s mission remains constant – to give timely, value-added marketplace insights and foresights.

Leo Haviland has three decades of experience in the Wall Street trading environment. He has worked for Goldman Sachs, Sempra Energy Trading, and other institutions. In his research and sales career in stock, interest rate, foreign exchange, and commodity battlefields, he has dealt with numerous and diverse financial institutions and individuals. Haviland is a graduate of the University of Chicago (Phi Beta Kappa) and the Cornell Law School.


 

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS: MARKETPLACE FIREWORKS©Leo Haviland July 3, 2024

In Charles Dickens’s novel “Great Expectations”, a character says: “‘Ask no questions, and you’ll
be told no lies.’”


CONCLUSION

Since around end December 2023, global inflationary forces have remained rather persistent. Note the moderate increase in the United States Treasury 10 year note yield since then. Recent consumer price index measures, despite having fallen from their peaks, stand fairly distant from the Federal Reserve Board’s inflation target. Commodity prices “in general” clearly exceed their December 2023 trough. For at least the near term, the Fed therefore will find it difficult to reduce its Federal Funds policy rate nearly as much as many marketplace participants hope. The US dollar has remained strong, appreciating modestly since year end 2023; this pattern suggests that American interest rate yields probably will remain rather high. America’s substantial and worsening national debt problems remain unsolved, with little prospect of progress anytime soon. Towering massive federal government budget deficits and high and growing debt as a percentage of GDP tend to boost interest rate yields higher.

Many times over the past century, significantly increasing United States interest rate yields have preceded a major peak, or at least a noteworthy top, in key stock marketplace benchmarks such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S+P 500. Although the S+P 500 has achieved a new all-time high this week, a “too strong” US dollar alongside rising US Treasury yields increases the probability for a fall in stocks. Marketplace opinions regarding substantial growth in US corporate earnings prospects for calendar years 2024 and 2025 look very optimistic.

Bitcoin and gold trends offer insight into patterns and prospects for other marketplaces, including the S+P 500.

The US national political scene in general and election season 2024 in particular add to financial marketplace risks.

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Great Expectations Marketplace Fireworks

MARKETPLACE FIREWORKS © Leo Haviland July 6, 2015

Statistics and stories constantly bombard marketplaces. In today’s marketplace environment, and especially when an especially enthralling news item bursts into view, many gurus and coaches scream about current or prospective crises, panics, and bubbles (overvaluation).

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Recent debt-related troubles in Greece and Puerto Rico and the collapse in the Chinese stock battleground are not isolated or entirely unique (special) marketplace events. They are signs and symptoms of widespread and intertwined marketplace phenomena. They are examples of and interconnected with current problems and related (linked) marketplace price movements around the globe.

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It is a truism that times change, but that does not mean that times necessarily are entirely or substantially different. Some historians may hearken back to the 2007-09 worldwide economic disaster; the United States real estate catastrophe and the demise of Lehman Brothers were not mere flare-ups. They did not stand alone. Debt, leverage, and credit problems were worldwide, even if they varied to some extent from place to place; their consequences erupted around the globe.

The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, and China’s central bank have engaged for many years in highly accommodative monetary programs. Despite lax policies such as sustained yield repression and massive quantitative easing (money printing), international debt, leverage, and credit problems did not disappear. They persisted and have reappeared. These central bankers have provided cosmetic fixes, not permanent ones, to such difficulties. Remarkably easy money policies, aided by political deficit spending, have helped to spark and sustain worldwide GDP growth since around early 2009.

Yet that past success does not guarantee future triumphs. Is worldwide growth decelerating? Probably. Note the downward growth revisions in recent months for 2015 for the United States by the International Monetary Fund (Article IV Consultation, released 6/4/15) and the Fed (Economic Projections, 6/17/15). Indications of a Chinese slowdown preceded its recent stock tumble. There have been concerns about the property marketplace, shadow (and other) banking, and increasing debt. “China orders banks to keep lending to insolvent provincial projects” declares the front page of the Financial Times (5/16-17/15, p1). Note the continued bear marketplace trend in base metals in general. Through May 2015, China’s year-on-year electricity output was about flat, up only .2pc (National Bureau of Statistics).

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Some issues obviously matter more to some traders (and marketplace sectors) than others. But in today’s interconnected global marketplaces, various key stock, interest rate, currency, and commodity playgrounds intertwine in diverse and often-changing fashions. Moreover, these arenas are never separate from the “real” economy. So flashy economic stories about one marketplace or nation can spark or accelerate modest and sometimes even dramatic price travels in numerous venues.

And regardless of which exciting tales currently capture substantial trading and media attention, they usually reflect and interconnect with crucial (and so-called “underlying”) economic (financial, commercial) and political phenomena. These noteworthy variables, issues, trends, and opinions regarding them not only capture the attention of many marketplace players, but also necessarily remain major factors for Wall Street price action and Main Street prosperity.

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The debt and leverage (credit) problems in the United States and elsewhere which developed prior to yet culminated in the Goldilocks Era arguably remain unsolved, or have appeared in related forms. For example, America in general has a love affair with debt. The overall consumer debt burden has lightened somewhat since the darkest nights of the 2007-09 crisis. However, federal debt has jumped up. Thus America’s overall indebtedness remains quite significant. See the essay, “America’s Debt Culture” (4/6/15).

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Marketplace Fireworks (7-6-15)