Is the strength of the US consumer overrated?
The US consumer, which represents a bigger share of global GDP than China’s economy, has been the main driver of US GDP growth in recent quarters. Spurred by job and […]
Tag Archives: unemployment
Is inflation finally coming?
The average unemployment rate in OECD countries has fallen to a historical low of 5.16%. And yet inflation has failed to reach the levels targeted by central banks. As a […]
Dovish Dots, but less stimulus the trend
After disbelieving the Fed for months, markets braced for a powerful message accompanying the first rate hike of this year. But that didn’t happen. One dovish hike and speech made […]
The week in charts – episode 2
11. Mark Rutte’s VVD wins Dutch elections, Wilders’ PVV second In the end, things were much less exiting than the polls made us believe. Rutte became the clear winner obtaining […]
Five charts on the Fed raising interest rates
Over the last 30 years or so, we have seen four major tightening cycles by the Fed. Under what circumstances did the Federal Reserve start raising rates, and how do […]
Week End Blog – Greece falters, but Europe persists
This week, markets were made clear that Syriza, the convincing winner of the Greek elections, means business. Syriza has taken a hard stance towards Europe, at least for now, which […]
Week End Blog – Payrolls, more payrolls, PMI’s and June returns
This week we reached the end of June, which was friendly for financial markets. All asset classes yielded positive returns, except one. Agricultural commodities prices went down by 2.5%. Gold […]
Consumer Confidence Explained
Last week, German consumer confidence came in at the highest level since January 2007. Confidence among German consumers bottomed shortly after the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 and […]
Jeroen Blokland Financial Markets Blog 