Oct 14, 2015 | Leading Indicators, US Economy
All of our leading indicators for credit spreads and volatility point to wider volatility and higher credit spreads over the next two years. The credit cycle is long in the tooth, and the best predictor of future credit spreads is the lagged growth in lending. For a...
Jun 2, 2015 | Leading Indicators, US Economy
There has been a sharp divergence between ISM services and non-services in the US. Many of our leading indicators for manufacturing have pointed to weakness. This suggests demand is tilting away from manufacturing and towards the service sector. The breakdown of the...
Feb 26, 2015 | Global Economy, Leading Indicators, Monetary Policy
As we remind our readers often, yield curves are one of the single best leading indicators. A yield curve inversion has predicted every US recession since 1945, with only one false positive, in 1966 (although the false positive preceded a downturn in industrial...
Nov 24, 2014 | Leading Indicators, US Economy
Despite the subdued nature of US CPI, some large components are turning up. Owners’ equivalent rent and rent of primary residence, which together account almost of a third of the CPI basket, are turning up strongly. A low vacancy rate and a relatively resilient US...
Jun 9, 2014 | Featured, Leading Indicators
While markets are fixated on the threat of deflation and “lowflation” (a dumb word if ever there was one), our leading indicators are pointing towards modest core inflation ahead. Furthermore, our leading headline inflation indicator is rising moderately as well. We...
Mar 20, 2014 | Emerging Markets, European Economy, Featured, Global Economy, Leading Indicators, US Economy
One of the themes we have been tracking in the past 6 months is the slowdown in global money growth and excess liquidity. The focus on the second derivative is important here. The level of growth in liquidity and money growth indicators is decent but the annual...
Mar 18, 2014 | European Economy, Featured, Leading Indicators
One of the equity themes we have been highlighting in the recent month is ongoing mismatch between high expectations in Europe relative to lacklustre growth in profitability and growth. European equities are overvalued based on what our models are telling us about...
Nov 4, 2013 | Emerging Markets, Featured, Global Economy, Leading Indicators, US Economy
Our real narrow money index continues to decline and is sending an increasingly bearish cyclical signal for the global economy and commodity prices. Our real narrow money index has now declined for 4 months running and is now tracking below 7% for the first time since...
Aug 13, 2013 | European Economy, Leading Indicators
Variant Perception has been writing about positive leading indicators in Europe for the past 6 months and, in this light, the recent improvement in the data is coming in as expected. The cyclical recovery in Europe is real and will likely have further to go in the...
