* Inflation remains sticky in US and Europe, creating challenges for central banks
* China factory activity in March is strongest in 13 months via survey
* Gold trades at new record high on Monday
* Bitcoin and S&P 500 are first quarter’s big winners
* Fed’s favored inflation gauge ticked up to 2.5% in February
* US consumer spending rebounds sharply in February:
● Enough: Why It’s Time to Abolish the Super-Rich
Luke Hildyard
Summary via publisher (Pluto Press)
The story is all too familiar. The global economy generates immense fortunes for a super-rich elite. Yet at the same time pay stagnates for ordinary workers, food banks proliferate and public services collapse around us. In Enough, Luke Hildyard argues that far from being the hard-working and productive entrepreneurs that they claim to be, the super-rich are an extractive, parasitic force sucking up a vastly disproportionate share of society’s resources – making the rest of us all poorer as a result.
The Capital Spectator is on hiatus over the next several days (with the exception of a new Book Bits column on Saturday, March 30). The usual routine resumes on Monday, April. 1. Meanwhile, have an eggs-tra special holiday!
* Fed Governor Waller says he’s in “no rush” to cut rates
* Rally in US stocks won’t be disrupted if rate cuts delayed: TS Lombard economist
* China’s surplus of clean energy products depressing prices: Treasury Sec. Yellen
* So-called Buffett Indicator is flashing red for stock market
* Japanese yen falls to 34-year low against US dollar
* Commodities continue to reflect rising price trend this year:
The bond market has struggled to fully recover from the Federal Reserve’s aggressive run of interest-rate hikes in 2022-2023, but pockets of strength remain conspicuous. Within the fixed-income space a degree of relative resilience persists for floating-rate securities, low-rated loan securities and junk bonds, based on year-to-date performance via a set of ETFs through Tuesday’s close (Mar. 26).
* US CPI inflation to stay above 3% through mid-year, predicts Garda’s Magnusson
* China’s Xi meets US executives amid US-China tensions
* China industrial profits rebound in first two months of 2024
* The decades-long expansion of US businesses in China is stalling
* US home prices continue to rise at robust year-over-year pace in January
* US Consumer Confidence Index edges up in March, holding in middling range
* Durable goods orders rebound in Feb, including this business-investment proxy:
The roaring US stock market has delivered red-hot gains in recent history, but at the expense of future returns. That, at least, is one interpretation via earnings-yield and dividend-yield models that estimate the ex ante equity risk premium (ERP). Based on a specific run of number crunching, this pair continues to estimate a negative ERP.
* US economic resilience suggests delaying rate cuts, writes strategist Ed Yardeni
* New US home sales eased in February but remain above last year’s pace
* Survey reveals nearly half of managers aim to replace workers with AI
* Texas manufacturing activity weakens in March: Dallas Fed
* US economic activity rebounded in March via Chicago Fed Nat’l Activity Index:
The stock market is soaring and the rising tide has lifted small-cap shares, but if you’ve been expecting a hefty premium (or any premium) in smaller firms, well, there’s still plenty of disappointment to process.
* Can the Fed cut interest rates if the stock market is soaring?
* Resilient economy persuades Fed that US recession risk remains low
* EU launches probe into Meta, Apple and Alphabet with new tech law
* China at ‘fork in the road’ with reforms to boost demand, says IMF chief
* China introduces new ban on US chips in government computers
* Infrastructure’s rise has turned it into a $1 trillion asset class
* US yield curve is inverted for nearly 1-1/2 years, but still no sign of recession:
