Daily update
Daily update
- With US consumers consuming, the day ahead for markets looks subdued. ECB President Lagarde is speaking, but this is the fourth time in two weeks we have heard from Lagarde. It seems unlikely that she will add anything markets care to hear.
- Japan’s October consumer price inflation was slightly lower than expected in spite of fading government support for utility bills. The trend amongst advanced economies is for inflation to surprise slightly to the downside. Japan did not have the profit-led inflation that has plagued Europe, the UK, and the US. Real wage growth remains negative in Japan.
- German third-quarter GDP revisions offered no change to the headline, and quite a lot of churning around in the detail. The revisions to these figures are sizable enough that offering authoritative statements on the state of the German economy is difficult.
- The unfortunate consequences of prejudice politics were shown in Dublin overnight, with what appears to be anti-immigrant rioting. Fear of economic uncertainty encourages scapegoat economics—it is reassuringly simple to be able to blame a single group for economic woes. The mantra for economic success in the fourth industrial revolution is “right person, right job, right time”; the rise of prejudice makes that impossible to achieve, fuelling further economic uncertainty.
