Special Report
Black Friday: Retailers finally have the right amount of stock
Black Friday found American shops with tidy shelves, sensible stock levels and hardly any panic clearance sales.
Latest Headlines
Special Report
Thanksgiving: Bond investors finally have something to be thankful for
The ten-year Treasury yield has fallen from its October peak of 5.02 per cent to about 4.40 per cent, handing bond funds large mark-to-market gains just in time for Thanksgiving.
U.S.
Moody's warns on America's debt
Moody's Investors Service cut its outlook on America's Aaa credit rating from 'stable' to 'negative' on 10 November.
Markets & Finance
Are financial conditions tight or loose? Depends who you ask
Goldman Sachs' financial conditions index (FCI) says conditions have tightened sharply, thanks to high borrowing costs and a strong dollar.
Economy
Inflation hits 3.2%. The last mile begins
Headline inflation fell to 3.2 per cent in October, and core prices rose at their slowest annual pace in two years.
Special Report
Diwali: India's festive boom runs on credit
Car dealers, electronics retailers and jewellers across India reported record sales over Diwali, helped along by the fastest growth of any major economy.
Special Report
Singles' Day: China's shoppers have lost their nerve
Alibaba and JD.com again declined to publish gross merchandise volume figures for Singles' Day, the second year running, and offered only vague claims that transactions had grown.
Business
WeWork's collapse: how leases became debt
WeWork has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, ending one of the most extravagant valuation bubbles venture capital has produced.
Markets & Finance
The Treasury borrows less than feared, and bonds soar
The Treasury set its quarterly refunding at $112 billion, a modest total that put most of the future growth in borrowing into shorter maturities.
Economy
The recession rule that's flashing amber
After the October jobs report the Sahm Rule indicator reached 0.33 percentage points, an amber warning.
Markets & Finance
The Treasury blinks
The US Treasury said on 31 October that it would borrow $776 billion in the coming quarter, well below the $852 billion Wall Street had feared, and that it would lean more heavily on short-dated bills.
Special Report
Halloween: The zombie companies are rising
Ten-year yields are near 5 per cent and base rates stand at 5.5 per cent, and the companies kept alive by cheap money are running out of time.
Tech
Alphabet spends more, grows less, and pays for it
Alphabet's shares fell 9.5 per cent in a single session after its third-quarter results, wiping $160 billion off its market value.
Markets & Finance
The bond vigilantes are back
A $24 billion auction of 30-year US Treasuries drew weak demand and had to offer a hefty yield concession to clear.
Markets & Finance
The 10-year hits 5%. Why now?
The ten-year US Treasury yield touched 4.99 per cent on 19 October, within a whisker of 5.0 per cent for the first time since July 2007.
World
China's hidden local debt problem
China's central government has allowed provinces to issue more than RMB 1 trillion of special refinancing bonds to deal with the hidden debts of Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs), which are estimated at $9 trillion.
Markets & Finance
Banks' profit peak is here
JPMorgan Chase reported net interest income of nearly $23 billion for the third quarter, helped by high policy rates and its ability to pay depositors little.
Markets & Finance
After the Hamas attack, the rush to safety faded fast
Hamas's horrific attack on Israel on 7 October at first sent trading desks to the usual script for a geopolitical shock.
Economy
Strong jobs, falling bonds
Non-farm payrolls rose by 336,000 in September, nearly double the consensus forecast.
U.S.
Washington's chaos now has a price
Congress passed a 45-day continuing resolution on 30 September and avoided a federal government shutdown with hours to spare.
Personal Finance
Student loans are back, and shops will feel it
Forty-three million Americans must start repaying federal student loans again on 1 October, ending a three-year pandemic holiday.
Markets & Finance
Long bonds are selling off for a new reason
The ten-year Treasury yield has broken through 4.55 per cent, a sixteen-year high, and the reason has changed.
Economy
The Fed takes back half its rate cuts
The Federal Reserve left rates unchanged at its September meeting and still managed to send a hawkish message.
Economy
Is "higher for longer" already priced in?
US consumer prices rose 3.7 per cent year-on-year in August, pushed up by a sharp rally in wholesale energy prices.
Business
The UAW strike's bill for Detroit
The United Auto Workers have gone on strike against Detroit's 'Big Three', General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, in a dispute that could reset labour costs across the industry.
World
How weak will Japan let the yen go?
The yen has slid toward 147 to the dollar, and currency traders are on watch for the Ministry of Finance to intervene.
Economy
Unemployment rose, for a good reason
The unemployment rate rose from 3.5 to 3.8 per cent in August, and the first commentaries warned of a turning cycle.
Special Report
Anniversary: Our first year, graded
This column began a year ago on a simple premise, that the steepest central bank tightening in forty years would sooner or later collide with private balance sheets.
Economy
Saudi Arabia keeps oil above $90
Saudi Arabia will keep its unilateral cut of one million barrels a day in place until the end of the year, and Brent crude is back above $90 a barrel.
Special Report
Labor Day: The job market is cooling the right way
For eighteen months economic orthodoxy held that bringing inflation down would require a painful jump in unemployment.
Business
Arm's IPO: scarcity is the selling point
SoftBank bought Arm for $32 billion in 2016 and now wants a valuation approaching $64 billion while selling just nine per cent of the British chip designer to the public.
Markets & Finance
Bonds finally pay more than inflation
Ten-year US Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) now yield more than two per cent, for the first time since the financial crisis of 2009.
Economy
Economists can't agree on where rates should settle
At this year's Jackson Hole symposium, economists showed once again that they cannot agree on where the neutral rate of interest (r*) lies.
Explainer
What is the "right" interest rate anyway?
The ten-year Treasury yield rose toward 4.35 per cent, its highest since 2007, and bond investors are having to ask an awkward question.
World
Country Garden and the end of China's property model
Country Garden missed $22.5 million in coupon payments on its international bonds, and the last pillar of China's private property model cracked.
Markets & Finance
China's prices are falling. Its currency could be next
Chinese consumer prices fell 0.3 per cent year-on-year in July, and the People's Bank of China now faces an awkward choice.
Markets & Finance
Why long bonds pay more — two very different answers
Ten-year Treasury yields have climbed toward 4.1 per cent, and fixed-income desks are arguing about why.
Economy
America is borrowing like it's in a recession. It isn't
The federal deficit is approaching six per cent of GDP while unemployment sits near a historic low of 3.5 per cent.
Markets & Finance
The Treasury needs more money, and companies will feel it
On 2 August the US Treasury raised its quarterly refunding to $103 billion, the first increase in coupon issuance since 2021.
U.S.
America loses its AAA again. Does it matter?
Fitch Ratings cut the United States from AAA to AA+ on 1 August, an unwelcome reminder of the fiscal arithmetic.
Economy
Is the economy really this strong?
Second-quarter GDP grew at an annualised 2.4 per cent, confounding the many who forecast recession and suggesting consumers are still spending freely.
Economy
One more hike, then what?
Futures markets put the odds of a quarter-point rise at the July FOMC meeting at ninety-eight per cent, so the decision itself is settled.
Markets & Finance
Why banks are selling their best loans
Banks are selling high-quality corporate loans to private credit managers and other institutional buyers, when they might be growing their balance sheets or putting spare cash into yielding assets.
Markets & Finance
Is Japan about to loosen its grip on bonds?
The yen sits near 139 to the dollar and headline inflation is comfortably above target, and speculation is growing that Kazuo Ueda will loosen or scrap the Bank of Japan's yield curve control (YCC).
Economy
Inflation hits 3%. The easy part is over
Headline US consumer price inflation fell to 3.0 per cent in June, and plenty of commentators declared the war won.
Economy
Inflation is falling without a recession. Can it last?
Consumer price inflation is slowing while the US economy still adds more than 200,000 jobs a month, and the optimists have found their gospel.
Special Report
Prime Day: What Amazon's discounts say about inflation
Shoppers spent an estimated $12.7 billion over Amazon's two-day Prime Day, an event that has become a rough gauge of how American consumers are holding up and what retailers can charge.
Markets & Finance
Banks passed the stress test. Now comes the real test
All twenty-three banks in the Federal Reserve's annual stress test passed in late June, showing on paper that they could survive a severe fall in commercial property prices and a global recession.
Special Report
Independence Day: Washington is paying factories to come home
Through the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, Washington is handing out tens of billions of dollars in grants, loans and tax credits to bring factories home.
World
Why British homeowners feel rate rises faster than anyone
Two-year gilt yields are climbing toward 5.5 per cent, their highest since 2008, and British homeowners are feeling it faster than borrowers almost anywhere else in the rich world.
