Daily update
Daily update
- Economists are staring at a data calendar so quiet that not even ECB President Lagarde is speaking. Doubtless, former US Treasury Secretary Summers will be on a media channel somewhere, as no force of humanity or nature can stop that, but it is a very quiet day. Without distractions, investors are likely to idly speculate on things like artificial intelligence (the bored ape NFT of 2023).
- We did have May consumer and producer price inflation from China. The data was broadly as expected—producer prices fell a little further than consensus. Companies have too many goods piling up in their warehouses, and this excess supply is weighing on prices. The ever-important pork price cycle was also pushing down consumer prices. These are parochial concerns, with limited read-through to the global economy.
- The UK government is to keep the energy profit levy in place until 2028. Attacking large, global energy companies’ margin expansion is easy. Fighting profit-led inflation in other sectors like food (with many small, local companies) can be more tricky.
- Former US President Trump has announced he is being charged with federal crimes. This will get a lot of media attention, but the 2024 presidential election is too far off for this to matter to markets.
