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Good Morning: The Long & the Short of it and The Bigger Picture - 9 May 2019 - ADM ISI





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Ostwald, Marc
08:43 (8 minutes ago)

to Marc





- All eyes on US/China trade talks, as China CPI, PPI & Lending, UK RICS
House Price and REC Jobs surveys are digested; awaiting US PPI,
Philippines Rate cut, Norges Bank no change, raft of Fed speakers,
informal EU Council meeting, further raft of earnings (US & Europe),
and bond sales in UK (5yr) and USA (30yr)

- US/China talks ill-starred following tariff escalation, but at least
still happening, no deal likely this week, but....

- China: CPI ticking higher on food (mostly pork), no other pressure points;
PPI gain paced by energy prices, and rather more surprising Iron Ore;
lending data miss both seasonal and unsurprising after Q1 surge

- US PPI: energy prices the key driver for headline, volatile Trade
Services the swing component for core PPI, no real material pressures

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** EVENTS PREVIEW **
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Inflation data from China and the US dominates the statistical schedule, with the events run topped by a raft of Fed speakers, rate decisions in Norway and a number of EM countries, plenty more corporate earnings and bond auctions in the UK and US, all of which will be subordinated by news flow from the start of another round of US / China Trade talks, with US tariff increase set to take effect in the early hours of Friday. In the also ran category, there are the UK RICS House Price survey, US & Canadian Trade Balance, Mexican CPI and an informal EU council meeting. Powell and Brainard head the list of Fed speakers, with the dovishly inclined Bostic and Evans. Norway has, in contrast to most developed economies, experienced a more enduring upturn in inflation, thus facilitating a gentle move higher in Norges Bank's official rates, and Friday's CPI is not expected to derail the latter, with headline CPI seen unchanged at 2.9% y/y, and Underlying (core) at 2.5% after a higher than expected 2.7% y/y in March, with a further 25 bps rate hike expected in Q3. In passing on the UK, the unchanged RICS House Price Balance at -23 was very unsurprising, and rather more attention needs to be given to the monthly REC Employment PMI which dropped quite sharply to 53.6 from 55.5, with the compilers noting that the UK labour market 'seized up' in April, in perhaps the first signal that the strength in labour demand seen in official data could fade quite quickly.

As for those US/China trade 'negotiations' developments, the fact that the US has already put in place the necessary changes to the US Federal Register to increase tariffs as of Friday morning underlines that the prospects for a deal this week are limited, though the fact that negotiations are going ahead with the White House saying that it has had indications from China that it wants 'to make a deal' is obviously positive, even if the tariff increase raises the overall heat map on trade, above all given the China Commerce Ministry that it will have to take 'necessary retaliatory measures', if the US goes ahead. The less well publicized and rather bigger hurdle, in light of the demands from the US on China reducing subsidies, was the Chinese announcement yesterday that it would be extending "preferential taxes for integrated circuit and software companies". In light of the news that did the rounds yesterday about how China had 'rewritten' very material parts of the draft proposal relating to setting timelines for changing legislation does imply that this starts to look like another kick of the Brexit can, though with Trump's unpredictable, petulant and often bizarre reaction function, nothing can be ruled out.

** China - April CPI / PPI / Lending **
- While CPI was in line with forecasts at 0.1% m/m 2.5% y/y vs. expected 2.5%, 0.31 ppt of the m/m rise in CPI was accounted for by the rise in Pork Prices (14.4% y/y), per se underlining that outside of food prices, there is little or no sign of inflationary pressures, with the Non-Food Price index slipping to 1.7% y/y from 1.8%. On PPI the above forecast 0.9% y/y rise vs. expected 0.6% and March 0.4% does confirm that the downtrend is clearly over, but it remains very subdued, and all the more so given that much of the rise was accounted for by Oil and Gas Prices. Somewhat surprisingly given the renewed focus on overcapacity in the steel sector, Iron Ore Prices were the other key contributor to the rise, rising to 10.6% y/y from 5.8%. This is more than likely a transient factor related to some supply disruptions from Brazil (Minas Gerais) and Australia. The uptick in inflation has no ramifications for policy. Monetary and Credit aggregates did slow more than expected M1 2.9% y/y vs. expected 4.3% and March 4.6%, Total Social Financing CNY 1.36 Trln vs. forecast CNY 1.65 Trln and March 2.86 Trln - however this is a) seasonally typical, and in any case follows the massive boost to lending in Q1, and b) these measures should rebound in May, above all if US/China trade tensions do escalate further.

** U.S.A. - April PPI **
- PPI is expected to tick up (0.3% m/m) paced by energy prices to 2.4% y/y headline (vs. 2.2%) and 2.5% core (vs. 2.4%), underlining that pipeline inflation pressures are minimal; the trade services sub-index will as ever be the key wild card for the core measure, having swung very sharply in recent months (last +1.1% m/m vs. prior -0.4% and +0.8%). The March Trade Balance is expected to echo last week's advance Goods Trade Balance and widen only modestly to $-50.1 Bln from February's $-49.4 Bln, per se implying a modest upward revision to the Net Exports contribution to Q1 GDP, when the second estimate is published at the end of the month. Weekly jobless claims have been rather volatile in recent weeks due to the Easter holidays, but should settle back this week to a very 'average' 220K after spiking up to 230K, after posting new cyclical lows of 193K and 197K in preceding weeks. As with the Payrolls and JOLTs data, there remains little or sign of any loosening of tight labour market conditions.
 
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