One business newscaster this morning observed (with a straight face) “The Shanghai’s morning session showed it going into Bear market territory, but after the lunch break it powered away dramatically. There is some speculation as to the likelihood of PBOCintervention”.
Some? Speculation?
Anyway, the apologists were out in force last night US time…still “peddling the fiction” (if I can quote Obama’s upbeat SoU fiction) that (a) China is irrelevant to the West and (b) the markets don’t reflect the economy.
So here’s a fab fact to chew on: the Fed just raised the cost of borrowing, and the Brics have an overhelming amount of their debts Dollar denominated. Over the last five years, they accounted for two thirds all global growth.
Always nice to start the day with a bit of bollocks deconstruction.
The futures on most markets were looking awful last night, then cheered up a little during the Asian session (don’t ask me why) but even so, they were still soft this morning. Once again, Bloomberg was using the v for volatility word to explain all this; Goldman Sachs showed more clarity by saying it would probably cut staff by 5% this quarter.
The desperation to explain away the obvious is getting funnier every day; global markets analyst Michael Metcalfe at 08:30 CET this morning:
“You know, everyone keeps saying that commodities are falling and world trade is falling and China’s slowing down,” he began, having described all the elements of a classic global slump, “but tell you what – the US consumer is holding up very well….they were to the upside in 2015”.
More accurate would be the statement that they were very much into the downside of their credit cards, but Mr Metcalfe is clearly going to stay in the bull camp until he gets eaten by a bear.
One cute phrase coming up more and more now is “the language of the narrative” which is just a long way of saying ‘mood’. At times the narrative bears a close resemblance to Gulliver’s Travels, and at others it feels to me like people using alternative language in order to say “don’t panic”.
Anyway, enough of Bloomberg TV….over now to its alter ego Boombust TV….
Turmoil in the Cuisine Aromatic flavourings space
Sage commentators are worried about what’s happening in the additives subsector of haute cuisine commodities. Looked at in real thyme, observers think falling prices are parsley due to the poor outlook for restaurant dining, but this doesn’t fully explain some very sharp rises on the Tikkatape in recent days.
Rosemary Tarragon has a black belt in oregano, and is the futures team leader at Herb Spice & Ptnrs. She told Boombust television:
“Right now, a ginger group is I think trying to salt the market and give a false buy signal for celery leaves, but it’s important we get the due dilligence right on this stuff. They’re just trying to curry favour with the analysts, but at the same time global-chain restaurants will be out to korma the market for kaffir leaves in the cumin months.”
The Boombust view remains that it’s a chilli environment out there with some up and down sweet and sour volatility ahead. The Flavix was heading south as the markets closed yesterday.
Amalgamated Coriander was 2.1% off on the news.
The Slog 