Last week’s rate decisions were really a story about tone, perception and thus credibility, as much as policy. The Fed delivered the hawkish decision markets had been braced for and then some: a 25bp hike to 3.75%–4.00%, its first increase since July 2023, passed by a unanimous 12-0 vote, a decision that came unanimously according […]
I’m on holiday this week and hadn’t planned on writing anything this morning. But between Cagliari’s start to the season and what’s about to happen at the Fed (and the BoJ, for that matter), the circumstances struck me as exceptional enough to warrant a few lines anyway. As I write this, interest rates aren’t the […]
Equities and credit are trading near their highs, but above that apparent calm hangs at least one genuinely uncomfortable thread: energy prices. The trigger isn’t hypothetical as the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively paralyzed since end of February, with daily tankers crossings down from about 60 to basically none, Gulf crude exports divided by […]
Major US media reports are warning of a depletion of the country’s military stockpile, especially advanced defensive interceptors and long-range precision missiles, following the prolonged conflict with Iran. Ukraine, for its part, is suffering large-scale Russian aerial attacks on an almost daily basis and a lack of high-end interceptors leaves it highly vulnerable to ballistic […]
Sometimes the scoreline lies. Yesterday’s Serie A clash between Cagliari and Inter ended in a narrow, almost respectable 1-0 defeat for my beloved team. The kind of result that, taken at face value, suggests a tight, competitive affair. Dig into the underlying numbers, however, and a far less flattering picture emerges: 31 shots, 7 on […]
Last week, in Sticky Rates Despite Slippery Growth, we flagged a puzzle: US data was turning noticeably gentler (weak July payrolls print, in-line and reassuring CPI, and a surprise drop in July retail sales), yet the 10y Treasury yield refused to budge from its highs. If anything, the picture has grown more stubborn since. The […]
Three weeks ago, in Beware of Certainties (27 July), we flagged how hard it had become to hold tactical convictions on rates, with investors pricing in two Fed hikes before year-end on the back of persistent inflation concerns with hardly anyone contemplating a hard landing. Since then, the data flow has told a more nuanced […]
The second-quarter US GDP print looked, at first glance, like a disappointment: growth came in at just +1.5% annualized. But headline numbers can be poor storytellers. Strip out the noise, and the US economy is not slowing… It is accelerating where it matters most. US Q2 advanced GDP breakdown: stronger than suggested by the headline […]
In financial markets, as in society at large, AI is the current buzzword. Its promises are certainly huge and its impacts on company business models already starting to materialise across a number of sectors. What of life sciences? Could AI accelerate the drug discovery process or are the days of real-world laboratory experimenting far from […]
