ECONOMICS

More than four years ago, when China first launched its latest "deleveraging" campaign targeted at bursting the country's housing bubble in a controlled fashion, which coincidentally was the single largest asset for China's massive middle class, we – and many others – said that this experiment was doomed and that all China is doing is delaying the inevitable bailout of the property sector with another metric asston of new debt. Well, as the news overnight confirmed, we were (more…)

US industrial production was unchanged MoM in April (weaker than the modest 0.1% increase expected) and following a downward revision in March from +0.4% to +0.1% MoM. The downward revision and weak print left IP down 0.4% YoY…

Source: Bloomberg

11 of the last 13 months have seen negative downward revisions to Industrial Production…

Source: Bloomberg

Capacity Utilization fell further to 78.4%…

Source: Bloomberg

Manufacturing was even (more…)

By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves

Another month passed without signs a recovery in the freight cycle was on the horizon. “Still waiting for it,” Cass’ April update on volumes and pricing stated.

The shipments component of the Cass Freight Index fell again in the month, down 1.6% seasonally adjusted from March and 4% lower year over year (y/y). The Tuesday data showed volumes were hovering around the late 2023-January 2024 cycle trough. The April reading was the lowest since (more…)