Daily update
Daily update
- China’s second quarter GDP growth was mixed—it slowed as expected, compared to the first quarter, but was quite a bit weaker than expected, compared to the second quarter last year. Does this matter globally? A weaker China may impact the global growth aggregate, but the global growth aggregate is a meaningless statistic. Because China’s domestic demand has been quite service-sector focused, fluctuations in that demand have limited spillover to other economies.
- The G20 are meeting in India. Markets are generally not paying any attention because the main thing the G20 does is create carbon emissions (and a certain amount of fiscal spending) by flying officials around the world. The problem with entities like the G20 is that once created, they are hard to abolish—even if abolition would be the kindest thing to do.
- Friday’s US Michigan consumer sentiment was a clear demonstration of the way political polarization impacts data. Republicans remain convinced everything is terrible, but the index was boosted by a wave of Democrat optimism. The fact that questions may be answered with a political bias is worth remembering. The Empire State manufacturing survey is due today.
- Europe is quiet today. ECB President Lagarde is probably speaking somewhere about something.
