U.S. Inflation at 2.9% is the highest since February 2012 and has outstripped wage growth for the first time since October 2012

U.S. Consumer Inflation at 2.9% is the highest since February 2012. And it isn’t just energy prices causing inflation to soar. Core inflation (which is Consumer inflation excluding volatile energy and food prices) at 2.4% has risen at the fastest pace in a decade. Here is a chart for CPI inflation growth,

US CPI August 2018
Source: Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

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History is repeating itself, is this the end of the current cycle of global synchronised growth?

We wrote earlier this year on the downsides of synchronised global growth. We wrote that when global synchronised growth begins to end the U.S. dollar strengthens, investors run away from emerging markets, interest rates continue to rise to tame inflation and bad debt becomes an issue. All of this is happening now, first the US Dollar, here is the 1-year performance of the U.S. Dollar mapped,

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Euro Area or Eurozone Money Velocity seems to be shockingly low

We couldn’t find any official Money Velocity numbers for the Euro Area (Eurozone) so calculated it using the Equation of Exchange

Equation of Exchange

MV=PQ

Money Supply (M) * Money Velocity (V) = Price level (P) * Real economic output (Q)

Which means Money Supply * Money Velocity = Nominal GDP

Therefore, Money Velocity = Nominal GDP/Money Supply

We have the numbers for both Money Supply (from OECD – Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and Nominal GDP (from Eurostat) for the Euro Area.

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China hasn’t been selling U.S. Government Bonds despite trade tensions

Is China selling U.S Government Bonds (Treasury Bills, T-Bonds and Notes) given the trade war tensions between China and the United States? The simple answer to that is no. Actually, no major foreign country holder of bonds is really selling.

But you might wonder what is going on if you make a chart look like this,

China holdings of US government bonds
Data Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury

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The European Union (and not China or the United States) accounted for the most trade in goods and services combined together

We will be publishing a number of statistics for the United Kingdom (and the European Union) over the next few days in the run up to a major piece we will be publishing on the real economics of Brexit.

The European Union (EU28 or EU) accounted for around one sixth of world trade in goods in 2016, with a 16.3% share of exports and a 15.0% share of imports. Turning to services the EU28’s contribution to world trade (mainly due to the United Kingdom which is leaving the European Union) was even greater, totalling 24.7% of exports and 21.1% of imports.

EU Share of total world trade
Data Source: Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO)

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UK Trade Statistics for trade by each country

We will be publishing a number of statistics for the United Kingdom over the next few days in the run up to a major piece we will be publishing on the real economics of Brexit. In the meanwhile, here are trade statistics for the United Kingdom for 2016 (the latest full year of data available) sourced from the Office for National Statistics.

The top 5 countries for total trade value were Germany (£95.67 billion), the United States (£84.09 billion), the Netherlands (£53.93 billion), China (£52.51 billion) and France (£44.40 billion)

UK total trade by country in 2016
Data Source: Office for National Statistics

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