“The end of the year appears to have sparked optimism about the future among consumers despite the current politico economic tension and uncertainty,” reports Chris Jackson of Ipsos. “Americans’ current confidence in the economy remains unchanged; however, as we look towards the new year, we see greater optimism particularly in our own personal financial situation.” Jharonne Martis, Director of Consumer Research at Refinitiv, said, “ Consumers remain engaged as the holiday season progresses. Retailers are facing difficult sales comparisons from a year ago when consumer spending was robust. As a result, the Refinitiv Same Store Sales Index is looking for

“Though there have been advances to resolve trade disputes between the United States and China, consumers still appear to be concerned about the implications of the dispute on the current and future health of their local economies,” reports Chris Jackson of Ipsos. “More Americans are reporting that they know someone who has lost their job as a result of the economic conditions adding further uncertainty to the current strength of the economy.” Jharonne Martis, Director of Consumer Research at Refinitiv, said, “Retailers are also concerned about the trade war implications. Currently, they are reporting third quarter earnings, and 63 retailers

In the past, when efforts to rebalance have triggered a slowdown, China has thrown in the towel, opting to support economic growth while exacerbating domestic and global imbalances. This time is no different. Indeed, as we demonstrated to clients in a more detailed note, as long as near-term growth remains China’s priority, we should expect to see this flip-flopping in economic policy time and time again. Refresh the chart in your browser | Edit chart in Datastream With the Fathom measure of China’s economic activity (our China Momentum Indicator 2.0) pointing to a slowing of growth amid escalating trade tensions, we informed

Leveraged Loan Monthly – September 2018 The September 2018 edition of LPC’s Leveraged Loan Monthly is now available for download on LoanConnector & LC Reports. Contents: Leveraged Loan Market Overview US High Yield Bond Market Overview Investor Overview and Fund Flows CLO Market Analysis CLO League Tables List of Recent CLOs Primary Market: Leveraged loan activity declined in the third quarter, registering $177 billion of volume, a decline of 40% compared to 3Q17’s record pace of volume. YTD leveraged issuance is tracking at $930 billion, which is 12% lower relative to last year. The institutional share of leveraged issuance has

At the time of writing, the Italian government budget deficit target is 2.4% in 2019, 2.1% in 2020 and 1.8% in 2021. This misses the ECB target of 1.6% each consecutive year. Politicians are hoping to stimulate the country’s lacklustre economy and fulfil pre-election pledges including: the introduction of a guaranteed basic income; the adoption of a flat rate of income tax and the repeal of the previous government’s pension reforms. For the Five Star Movement, the agreement to enlarge the budget deficit and implement their flagship policies is an important step forward, as polls suggest that the party has

During 2017, the combination of strong growth in the global economy’s major centres of activity — China, the euro area, and the US — and accommodative financial conditions buoyed EM assets. The benchmark MSCI EM index rose 34%, aided by a weakening US dollar and broadly flat long-term US interest rates. 2018 has not been as easy a ride. Global GDP growth remains resilient, albeit with a change in its composition. Softening in China and Europe is largely being offset by strength in the US. While global GDP growth this year is likely to check in at close to last

Investors have heeded our advice and adopted a risk-off approach over the last quarter — the yields of core government bonds have fallen, equity markets have had a mixed performance and emerging market assets have sold off. We attribute the decline in core government bond yields to a fall in the term premium, rather than a lower expected path for interest rates. Given investor uncertainty, in part related to simmering trade tensions, and our expectation that a global recession is on the horizon, our top-level asset allocation is unchanged in Q3. Refresh the chart in your browser | Edit chart in Datastream

WASHINGTON, DC – American consumer confidence, as measured by the Thomson Reuters/Ipsos Primary Consumer Sentiment Index, is essentially unchanged in September 2018. This month the PCSI stands at 62.8, a 0.1 point increase from last month. The sub-indices of the PCSI present somewhat mixed signals. While the Jobs Index shows that American job security has reached a high-point for the index, Current Financial conditions and Expectations are flat while Investment confidence is down. “The continued economic rally appears to continue encouraging consumer confidence,” reports Chris Jackson, Vice President at survey research firm Ipsos.”Job security, which has traditionally been the bedrock

Fathom’s proprietary ‘probability of default’ indicators use market pricing to infer the perceived likelihood of sovereign defaults occurring within various time periods. The volatility in these indicators has declined substantially since the heights of the euro area crisis. Nevertheless, recent events in Italy have caused a spike in volatility. At 14%, the market-implied probability of default within the next five years remains relatively low. However, the risk is twice as high at the ten-year horizon, with market participants evidently concerned by the country’s elevated public debt burden For now, the sovereign still enjoys access to capital markets with the government

In this Research Note, we’ll explore in more detail the validity of the adage “flight to quality.” The hypothesis is that during times of fear or uncertainty in the markets, institutional investors typically have to maintain market exposure as part of their mandate, but may shift their holdings toward lower-risk securities. In this paper, we’ll examine if this behavior actually occurred during several market sell-offs. We use the StarMine® Earnings Quality (EQ)1 stock ranking model throughout this Research Note as the measure of “quality.” In this study, we performed a test examining the performance of a quality factor from the

A $1 trillion market capitalization is as impressive as it is meaningless. Amazon hit that threshold on Tuesday, joining smartphone maker Apple and literally no other company. Market capitalizations, though, are a mathematical fiction. A far more substantial target would be to achieve a 13-digit top line. No other company has come close, but Amazon might. Jeff Bezos’s colossal online retailer made $208 billion of revenue in the past four accounting quarters. That’s still substantially behind Apple, at $255 billion. It’s also less than half the $510 billion reaped by supermarket chain Walmart and puts Amazon 16th among globally listed

Fathom’s measure of economic activity in China — the CMI — stood at 6.5% in June, unchanged from the revised May reading, but below both its recent peak and official GDP estimates. After months of waning momentum, this steadying may reflect China’s recent efforts to support the economy through monetary stimulus, a sign that it is again doubling down on its old growth model. Refresh the chart in your browser | Edit chart in Datastream Faced with slowing growth and escalating trade tensions, we correctly predicted that China would also allow its currency to weaken, with a forecast of 6.8 against the