Tag: United States of America

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The yield curve inversion plus why banks and banking stocks are impacted by it

The U.S. 10-year Treasury constant maturity yield minus the 2-year Treasury constant maturity yield spread has been a good indicator of past recessions. Yield curve inversion which happens when the spread turns negative and has preceded the last seven straight recessions. The 10-year Treasury constant maturity yield minus the 2-year Treasury constant maturity yield is the lowest since the last recession at only 10 bps.

10y minus 2y yield December 5 2018
Data Source: Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

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Have U.S. tariffs on Steel and Aluminium imports really increased domestic production?

We wrote about the economics behind the 25% tariff on Steel imports and 10% tariff on Aluminium imports to the United States earlier this year. One of the main justifications of the tariffs were that they will increase domestic production. Some statistics released earlier this week provide an answer to whether the tariffs have really increased domestic production.

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Germany accounts for almost all the intra European Union current account surplus plus the European Union posts a record external current account surplus with the U.S.

Sixteen members of the European Union recorded current account surpluses, eleven current account deficits and one was in current account balance in the second quarter of 2018 for the total (intra-EU plus extra-EU) current account balances of the European Union (EU28) Member States.

The highest surpluses were observed in Germany (+€63.8 bn), the Netherlands (+€16.8 bn), Italy (+€10.5 bn), Ireland (+€10.2 bn) and Denmark (+€3.6), and the largest deficits in the United Kingdom (-€20.7 bn), Romania (-€2.6 bn) and Belgium (-€2.4 bn).

EU current account balance member states Q2 2018
Source: Eurostat

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Are rising benchmark interest rates in the United States having any impact on mortgage or saving interest rates?

The Federal Reserve increased the target for the bank’s benchmark rate by 0.25% (to a range of 2% to 2.25%) last week, the eighth rate rise since 2015. Are rising interest rates really having any impact on mortgage or saving rates?

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Those three U.S. recession indicators – how near or far are those from being invoked? September 2018 edition

We wrote about three slightly different U.S. recession indicators that have been predictive of the past few recessions and have been tracking how near or far are those from being invoked, here’s where we are in September 2018,

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Are major exporter countries to the United States really manipulating their currency to boost exports?

The Euro Area, China, Canada, Mexico and Japan together account for over 70% of U.S. trade. Have these countries (including the Euro Area group of countries) manipulated their currencies to boost exports? In this century (2000 onwards) the Chinese Yuan, the Canadian Dollar and the Euro have appreciated against the dollar. The Japanese Yen has been largely unchanged against the U.S. dollar since the start of this century and only the Mexican Peso has weakened against the dollar.

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