Macro Outlook: Better, But Is It This Good?
What’s in Today’s Report:
- Macro Outlook Update: Better, But Is It This Good?
- Weekly Market Preview
- Weekly Economic Cheat Sheet (Today and Friday are the key days)
Futures are flat as economic data was weak, but countering that was positive comments on U.S./China trade.
September EU flash composite PMIs were ugly, as the headline dropped to 50.4 vs. (E) 52.0 while manufacturing fell to 45.6 vs. (E) 47.3. As usual, U.S./China trade is over shadowing everything else, but these are not good numbers and they do not imply global economic stabilization is occurring.
On U.S./China trade, the Chinese Ministry of Finance called last week’s talks “constructive” and that’s alleviating fears the earlier than expected departure implied a breakdown.
Today the key number is the Sept. Flash PMI (E: 51.2) and it needs to meet or beat expectations, otherwise concerns will continue to rise about the future growth of the U.S. economy.
There are also three Fed speakers (Williams (9:50 a.m.), Bullard (1:00 p.m.), Daly (2:30 p.m.)) we got a lot of Fed speak on Friday and it didn’t change the current outlook, so there’s no reason to think that will happen today.
