Here are highlights from April 2018,
Our three most read posts in April 2018
1. Alphabet (the parent company of Google) spent the most as a company on lobbying. Facebook’s spend on lobbying increased 5500% since 2009. They spent most lobbying on changes to … data privacy (Click here to read).
2. This is what has happened to the unemployment rate in the US four to eight months before every recession since the 1940s and why it matters now (Click here to read).
3. Not an April Fools’ Day joke – this really is how the US Dollar has performed against each currency of the world over the past one year (Click here to read).
Focus on Europe
Europe’s lost economic decade in charts (Click here to read).
France, Spain and the UK report slower Q1 2018 GDP (Click here to read).
The European banking crisis is far from over (Click here to read).
Parts of the European Union have seen nominal GDP per capita fall between 2007 and 2017 (Click here to read).
ECB asks Deutsche Bank to estimate the cost of winding down its investment bank (Click here to read).
The Athens Stock Exchange General Index has returned 19% over the last year but lost 85% since 2007 (Click here to read).
Spain’s sovereign debt upgrade (Click here to read).
UK Q1 2018 GDP slowest since Q4 2012 (Click here to read).
The average house price across the European Union fell 6.98% between 2008 and 2017, Romania (-48.77%), Greece (-42.84%) and Spain (-30.50%) were the 3 worst performing countries (Click here to read).
US trade, GDP and more
All you wanted to know about US trade in 2017 and why China matters so much (Click here to read).
US Q1 2018 GDP estimated at 2.3% as personal consumption collapses; wage growth highest in a decade; personal saving rate falls (Click here to read).
This is what has happened to the unemployment rate in the US four to eight months before every recession since the 1940s and why it matters now (Click here to read).
Can the US government afford higher interest rates? (Click here to read).
US consumer and commercial debt hit record highs but charge-off and delinquency rates remain at low levels (Click here to read).
Here’s how banks in the US earned over $25 billion in 2017 by lending money to the Federal Reserve and why that number could double in 2018 (Click here to read).
Soaring (and falling) Bond yields
US 10-year bond yield over 3% as Greece 10-year bond yield falls below 4%; US 2-year bond yield hits 2.5% (Click here to read).
Can the US government really cope with rising bond yields? (Click here to read).
Canadian bond yields rising most amongst the G20 (Click here to read).
Other interesting things
There are days when no one trades some Japanese government bonds (Click here to read).
Crude oil is up 23% over the past year and it has started making an impact (Click here to read).
Spotify’s direct listing and comparison to Netflix (Click here to read).
Gross and net debt of every country as percentage of GDP for 2017 (Click here to read).
Borrowing or surplus of every country as percentage of GDP (Click here to read).
Household saving rates are falling globally (Click here to read).
Australian interest rates are lower than that of the US for the first time in 18 years (Click here to read).
Nomura to hire fewest graduates in five years as it spends more on robots (Click here to read).