United States

Oxford Economics expects restocking to turn inventories into an increasing support for growth through 2027 alongside strong business investment.

United Kingdom

July GDP growth smashed expectations.

Euro Area

Nomura’s ECBspeak Index shows a sharp hawkish shift in ECB communication in 2026, accompanied by a widening spread between one-year-ahead and one-month-ahead euro interest rates, consistent with expectations of further policy tightening.

Equities

Stripe’s payment-based index of non-AI SaaS businesses shows annual nominal revenue growth accelerating.

Rates

The Treasury bought $5.19 billion of 10- to 20-year debt in its first expanded buyback, below the $6 billion maximum despite $10.5 billion in offers, fueling doubts about its ability to curb long-term yields.

Energy

The backwardation in the forward curve has intensified.

Energy

The spot Brent premium over WTI jumped.

Global Developments

Implied volatility fell across bonds and US equities but rose for emerging market equities and oil.

United States

The Chicago Fed CARTS estimates that retail sales ex-auto for August rose by 0.5% month over month, …

… but the inflation-adjusted measure was flat.

Euro Area

Nearly 90% of Germans support membership in Europe’s common currency and market, presenting a constraint on the AfD’s euroskeptic platform.

Europe

Sweden’s monthly GDP contracted in July, registering its steepest monthly decline in over a year.

Equities

Consumer Staples’ revenue growth has been driven almost entirely by price increases since 2022, while volumes have remained persistently weak.

Commodities

Silver miners are holding record-high net cash balances.

Alternatives

VC funds show the widest IRR gap between top and bottom performers across 2005 to 2020 vintages.

Food for Thought

The latest PISA results show rich-world teenage literacy and numeracy declining further.

United States

Household deleveraging is broad-based across the income spectrum.

Euro Area

Alpine Macro argues that euro area monetary policy is already more restrictive than at the peaks of the 2000 and 2008 tightening cycles, even before the ECB’s latest rate hike.

Japan

Japan Macro Advisors’ BoJ Policy Stance Indicator uses text analysis to infer individual board members’ policy views.

China

China’s headline inflation accelerated, driven by surging energy prices and higher transportation service costs. Core inflation edged up year over year but slowed on a month-over-month basis.

Equities

The US dividend yield has fallen to around 1%, well below the rest of the developed world …

Credit

Hyperscalers are issuing a substantial amount of debt.

Global Developments

The New York Fed finds little evidence of broad-based official diversification, with similar numbers of countries increasing and decreasing their dollar reserve shares over four-year windows.

United States

Temporary employment, a leading labor market indicator, continued to rebound in August, also signaling an encouraging outlook for job growth, according to BCA Research.

Euro Area

German industrial production unexpectedly contracted, weighed down by a drop in autos due to EV retooling shutdowns.

Low Rhine water levels and auto factory holidays could delay any recovery.

Japan

The yen rose to a nearly seven-month high against the dollar as traders priced in imminent Bank of Japan rate hikes and remained alert to intervention risk.

Speculators increased net shorts in yen futures last week.

China

China’s trade surplus widened.

Equities

Tech-sector profit margins are at structural and cyclical highs, driving much of the upside in listed-company profitability.

Commodities

Copper mine supply may post its first annual drop since 2017.

Global Developments

The US consensus GDP growth forecast for 2026 has held up. For other advanced economies, consensus forecasts are rebounding.

United States

The ISM Services PMI accelerated more than expected, signaling a solid expansion in the sector.

The expansion remained broad-based.

Canada

The US share of Canadian exports fell to the lowest level outside the pandemic.

Europe

Europe’s smallest firms face implied costs of capital above 60%, versus roughly 40% for US peers, constraining their capacity to finance and scale profitable growth.

Japan

The yen rallied sharply in a four-standard-deviation move, amid rising expectations for consecutive Bank of Japan rate hikes and speculation about renewed intervention.

Equities

Alpine Macro’s Tactical Asset Allocation with AI model increased its risk stance for September, raising equity and gold allocations, while trimming fixed income and commodities.

Rates

Hedge funds’ expanding, leveraged, and concentrated Treasury positions are replacing China and other central banks as a potential source of market instability, increasing the risk that forced deleveraging could amplify a bond-market selloff.

Commodities

A strong El Niño does not necessarily mean a bull market for agricultural commodities, according to TS Lombard.

Global Developments

Foreign investors’ dollar hedge ratios have fallen to a record low.

United States

ADP private payrolls growth slowed, adding 38,000 jobs in August and trailing expectations.

Gains were driven entirely by service sectors—led by education and health services—while goods-producing industries shed workers.

Canada

The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25% for a seventh meeting, but adopted a more hawkish stance as energy-price risks and trade tensions raise inflation concerns.

Euro Area

Political fragility is rising again across much of Europe.

Europe

Switzerland’s inflation accelerated and topped expectations, as higher energy costs and a weaker franc lifted import prices.

Japan

The yen rebounded sharply as traders priced in potential BOJ tightening and renewed intervention risk.

Equities

The technology sector is now more capital-intensive than the mining sector.

Rates

The front end of the inflation swap curve has rebounded sharply.

Rates

However, that pales in comparison to the surge in the EUR inflation swap rate.

Global Developments

80% of our readers believe AI-related stocks are in a bubble, with a growing share expecting the bubble to be sustained for at least the next 12 months.

United States

Data center construction spending continues to surge and has now surpassed the peak in spending on general office construction.

United Kingdom

Consumer credit expanded by more than anticipated, but mortgage lending moderated sharply.

Japan

The sharp rise in Japan’s 10-year government bond yield is driven by a combination of aggressive policy rate expectations and a surging term premium fueled by fiscal and inflation jitters.

China

A Treasury selloff widened the US–China 10-year yield spread to 312 basis points, near a record.

Equities

These charts compare the valuation metrics of the cap-weighted and equal-weighted S&P 500.

Rates

The global bond selloff has pushed yields to multiyear highs, but drawdowns remain far smaller than in 2022.

United States

Fed speeches have turned more hawkish in aggregate recently.

United Kingdom

London’s Aim market—the LSE’s junior exchange for smaller growth companies—faces an existential crisis as listings fall to 605 and investor demand weakens amid poor returns, depressed valuations, reduced inheritance-tax relief, and intensifying competition from the main market and private capital.

Euro Area

Germany retail sales tumbled, following the expiration of temporary fuel tax relief.

Japan

The 10-year JGB yield touched 3% for the first time since 1996.

Asia-Pacific

Business credit creation in Australia is far outpacing that in New Zealand.

China

PBOC-driven yuan stability …

… has pushed offshore options volumes to a multi-year low, discouraging foreign trading and corporate hedging.

Equities

September is historically the toughest month for equities, with positive returns just 49% of the time.

Historically, September’s worst S&P 500 declines have overwhelmingly occurred during already-weak markets.

Strong year-to-date gains have historically preceded many of the best September returns, suggesting the S&P 500’s nearly 13% advance in 2026 may reduce the risk of a sharp September selloff.

United States

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh commented that he gauged underlying inflation by looking at the shares of the PCE basket that showed price increases above 3%. He noted these measures are below the post-pandemic highs but well above levels in the two decades preceding the pandemic.

Canada

Real GDP accelerated sharply to an annualized rate of 3.3% in the second quarter, …

… led by exports, consumer spending, and business investment.

Japan

Industrial production unexpectedly edged up, marking its fourth consecutive monthly advance. The surprise was underpinned by strength in semiconductor manufacturing equipment as well as a rebound in chemicals and petroleum refining as Middle Eastern supply disruptions eased.

Equities

AI-related investment gains increasingly flatter hyperscaler earnings, with “other income” rising to 54% of pretax income. Excluding other income, the adjusted profit margins are closer to 20%.

Rates

For three decades, changes in the 10-year Treasury yield were concentrated almost entirely around Fed meetings. That stopped in 2022.

Credit

US high-yield OAS slipped to the lowest level since February 2025.

Global Developments

On a trailing three-month basis, Goldman’s trimmed core inflation slowed in the euro area, but accelerated elsewhere.

United States

The advance goods trade deficit widened sharply to its largest gap in over a year, …

… as AI-driven capital-goods imports surged.

Canada

The current account balance swung sharply into a surplus in Q2, driven by record oil and bitumen exports, bolstering the country’s trade cushion amid escalating tariff tensions.

Euro Area

Euro area credit creation accelerated for both households and nonfinancial corporates.

Europe

Switzerland’s KOF leading indicator advanced to its highest level since November 2021.

Japan

Tokyo inflation measures accelerated across the board.

Equities

Jackson Hole has historically generated outsized equity volatility, with the S&P 500 averaging a 1.03% absolute move following the Fed chair’s speech versus 0.63% on other August sessions, while negative reactions have tended to be particularly sharp.

Credit

Here’s a long-term look at annual defaults by investment- and speculative-grade issuers.

United States

Real disposable income has effectively flatlined for well over a year in level terms and is well below the pre-pandemic trend.

Euro Area

Are French government bonds losing their “core” status?

Asia-Pacific

The Bank of Korea raised its policy rate by 25 basis points to 3%, as expected, framing the move as a preemptive step to anchor inflation expectations.

Emerging Markets

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas raised its target rate by 25 basis points to 5%, in line with consensus.

Equities

Anthropic is likely to tell investors its total addressable market (TAM) exceeds $30 trillion.

Equities

Buying stocks with massive TAMs hasn’t been a sure-fire winning strategy.

Rates

OECD bonds are having a dismal decade.

Global Developments

Shipping prices have spiked across trade chokepoints.

United States

The Conference Board consumer confidence index softened. While the present situation gauge jumped, expectations deteriorated to a seven-month low.

Euro Area

German business sentiment strengthened. The improvement was led by a sharp rebound in forward-looking business expectations alongside higher current assessment marks, indicating broad-based resilience despite elevated energy costs and low river water levels.

Asia-Pacific

The Nomura-TWnow model is tracking Taiwan’s Q3 GDP growth at a robust 10.9% year over year

China

China’s AI-fueled IPO boom has lifted quarterly proceeds to a three-year high, but fading liquidity, steep post-debut losses, and signs of greater regulatory scrutiny threaten its sustainability.

Equities

The 45-day correlation between high-beta and low-volatility stocks hit the most negative level on record.

Rates

Citadel’s CTA simulation sees unusually stretched positioning in long-dated Treasuries that could amplify a rally through short covering.

Global Developments

Over 85% of the world’s economies we track are growing at above-potential rates.

United States

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent may deploy part of the Treasury General Account (TGA) to fund expanded long-dated bond buybacks.

The TGA is the federal government’s bank account at the Federal Reserve and carried a balance of $954 billion as of last Wednesday. The Treasury maintains a TGA buffer primarily as insurance against a temporary inability to issue debt.

Because the TGA is a Fed liability, a decline in the TGA with Fed assets unchanged produces an offsetting increase in bank reserves in a QE-like manner. However, the liquidity boost would be temporary, as investors would anticipate an eventual rebuilding of the Treasury’s cash balance, according to BCA Research.

Japan

The nominal JGB yield is now well above the dividend yield.

Asia-Pacific

The tech boom in Taiwan has not translated into happiness among consumers.

China

China’s widening “alligator jaws” reflect a surging current-account surplus increasingly offset by large portfolio outflows, as export earnings are recycled into foreign assets.

Equities

The recent spikes in long bond yields have sharply depressed earnings multiples, even though share prices have soared.

Rates

Shifting ownership bases—declining domestic demand in the UK, a fall in foreign US Treasury holdings, and France’s 57% nonresident share—could heighten sovereign-bond market sensitivity to changing investor confidence.

Commodities

Our model suggests CTAs have continued gold purchases and their overall positioning has turned positive.

Global Developments

US business investment is projected to rise 40% in real terms from 2021 through 2027, versus 12% in the euro area, widening the AI-driven technology and productivity gap.

United States

Service-sector activity reached the highest level since the end of 2024, offsetting a slowdown in manufacturing.

Canada

US-Canada trade talks collapsed, triggering 50% US tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian imports and prompting Canada to impose dollar-for-dollar countertariffs on US steel, dairy, and appliances on September 8, escalating risks to the nearly $900 billion bilateral trade relationship.

Here’s a look at the trends in US-Canada goods trade.

The US imports more goods from Canada than from China.

Euro Area

The flash manufacturing PMI for the euro area surged to the highest level in over four years, while service-sector activity held steady.

Europe

Norway’s domestic credit growth edged lower.

China

Foreign direct investment into China slowed.

Equities

Global earnings breadth remains strong, with the share of countries experiencing year-over-year forward EPS downgrades near cycle lows.

Credit

As a percentage of equity market cap, debt issuance this year looks subdued.

Food for Thought

Computer memory prices fell for decades, …

… until recently.

United States

The Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index surged to the highest level since April 2021, defying expectations for a decline.

The six-month-ahead business conditions indicator posted the largest one-month increase in the survey’s history to reach the highest level since August 1983.

Canada

Small business optimism moderated.

Euro Area

Italian government bonds now yield less than French ones.

Emerging Markets

The composition of the EM equity index has shifted significantly over the last 15 years.

Equities

Equity factor premiums can remain negative for years.

Rates

Ambiguity around the Fed’s reaction function has led to a pickup in US rates volatility.

Global Developments

Nomura’s Chip Shortage Index is near a record high, signaling a deep, AI-driven semiconductor shortage.

United States

The Treasury will at least double buybacks of 10- to 30-year nominal bonds to $4 billion per operation from September 9 to November 4 (roughly $16 billion of additional purchases per quarter), while leaving coupon auction sizes likely unchanged, effectively financing the additional purchases through increased bill issuance.

United States

Here’s a look at the intraday market reactions.

United Kingdom

London is the UK’s worst-performing housing market over the past year.

Europe

Sweden’s Riksbank held its policy rate at 1.75% and maintained that a 2026 hike remains possible if the Iran conflict fuels persistent inflation.

Emerging Markets

Vietnam’s economy has outperformed its Southeast Asian peers since 2021.

Equities

Analysts expect hyperscaler EBITDA margins to rise to roughly 50% by decade-end from about 30% in recent years, a critical assumption underpinning the economics of massive AI capital spending.

Commodities

An elevated net 16% of fund managers surveyed by Bank of America consider gold to be undervalued.

Food for Thought

Economics is increasingly dominated by empirical causal methods.

United States

AI-driven computer and electronics production continues to surge, accounting for roughly half of overall manufacturing output growth, while nearly all remaining gains are concentrated in aerospace and other advanced industries. In contrast, lower-value-added manufacturing has stagnated.

Euro Area

The Rhine River water level at Kaub remains low. The Kiel Institute estimates that industrial production falls by 1% for every 30 days the water level is below the 0.78-meter threshold.

Europe

Carry traders are increasingly favoring the Swiss franc over the yen as near-zero Swiss rates and a dovish SNB improve funding economics.

Japan

JGB yields don’t stand out based on a cross-sectional analysis of OECD members’ current account balances and their 10-year government bond yields.

Equities

Without rebalancing, a 60/40 portfolio would’ve become a 92/8 portfolio.

Rates

HFGM, the ETF we use as a proxy for global macro hedge funds, has a net developed world government bond exposure of nearly −100%.

Commodities

Copper’s historic LME supply squeeze eased as more than 20,000 tons entered exchange warehouses.

United States

The New York Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing Index climbed to the highest level since December 2021.

Canada

Leveraged players continue to hold sizable net short positions in CAD.

United Kingdom

Youth unemployment in the UK has overtaken that of the EU.

Euro Area

Greece plans roughly €13 billion of early debt repayments in 2026, supported by fiscal surpluses and ample liquidity, which could reduce debt to 137% of GDP and bring its borrowing stock below Italy’s by year-end.

China

China’s economic activity weakened broadly in July, with incoming data surprising to the downside.

Equities

Big Tech has amassed roughly $3 trillion in mostly AI-related off-balance-sheet commitments.

Rates

The US Treasury 30-year yield is trading at the highest level since June 2007.

Food for Thought

UC Berkeley’s Calculus I diagnostics indicate readiness fell from 71% before test-blind admissions to 51% in 2021–23 and 44% in 2023, while more than one-third of students showed severe math deficits.

United States

Federal debt has consistently defied CBO forecasts.

Europe

European banks have outperformed the Mag-7 since 2022.

Japan

Q2 GDP grew by 1.1% (Q/Q, SAAR), well below consensus.

China

Total social financing (TSF) topped forecasts, supported by stronger corporate bond financing and higher government bond issuance.

Emerging Markets

Emerging-market inflation-linked bonds have performed well this year.

Equities

The forward P/E of the largest 10 companies in the S&P 500 has converged to that of the remaining companies.

Rates

Hedge Funds’ $4 trillion gross exposure—$2.4 trillion longs and $1.6 trillion shorts—is dominated by repo-financed relative-value trades—basis, swap-spread arbitrage, maturity-matched, and curve positions—rather than long-only holdings, increasing the risk of destabilizing forced unwinds.

United States

Headline PPI was roughly flat after rounding in July, driven by falling energy prices. Core PPI rose 0.2%, tamer than expected, although the June reading was revised up from 0.2% to 0.4%.

Canada

Canadian data have recently surprised to the upside, but tighter financial conditions, fading sentiment and labor momentum, slower labor-force growth, and trade tensions point to renewed weakness, favoring Canadian government bonds over US Treasuries.

Euro Area

Euro area banks are financially stronger than a decade ago.

China

China’s output per hour is just 23% of US levels, leaving substantial scope for productivity convergence.

Equities

Momentum stocks are now cheaper than the market based on forward P/E.

Energy

How has the market adjusted to the loss of Hormuz exports?

Alternatives

Private equity buyouts more closely resemble US small-cap than large-cap equities in sector composition.

Global Developments

Here’s a look at Wells Fargo’s global central bank policy rate forecasts.