Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• US stocks rallied almost 3% yesterday and last night stocks around the world followed suit. The
primary driver of this week’s equity trade appears to be the euro, which rallied from a low under 1.19 on
Monday to 1.21 and change over the week. The euro was introduced in 1998 at 1.18 and has traded for
significant periods of time in the 1.18‐1.22 range, making this a technically significant level. – FTN
S&P 500 (orange) and Euro/USD (green dash)
The Euro’s move down against the dollar has been nearly in lockstep with the move down in S&P. The
bounce yesterday was that same correlation working in reverse.
• The WSJ says labor unrest and wage pressures in China are far more widespread than you might
think if all you have seen are the stories of strikes at Honda’s plants and suicides and Foxconn and the
wage increases used to address them, the two story lines at the forefront in US coverage of China the
past several weeks. China has increased its minimum wage, and workers’ buying power is increasing
with it. Even as US officials used yesterday’s news of a record Chinese trade surplus to pressure China to
allow its currency to appreciate, the paper says higher income will eventually increase Chinese demand
for imports. Separately, the paper says China is not likely to ease restrictions on housing even though
home sales are falling because construction continues to grow. Until residential construction spending
slows, restrictions are likely to remain in place to prevent a bubble from growing any larger.
• In May 2010, Chinese exports climbed 48.5% y/y, well above consensus expectations, to
US$131.76 billion, the highest dollar value since mid 2008. Exports also rose on a sequential basis to all
major trading partners, including the U.S. and EU. – RGE Monitor
• If all you know of the Gulf spill and the response comes from cable news coverage (a colleague
yesterday said the shot of oil gushing from the well head has become cable news’s Yule log…), we highly
recommend Discovery Channel’s “Disaster in the Gulf” special. Last night’s first episode was balanced
and thorough, capturing both the environmental and economic destruction of the spill as well as the
response from BP. The response room at BP is staffed by 50 engineers around the clock who come
across with the same calm professionalism seen in documentaries of NASA control rooms in the sixties.
It’s really hard to hate these guys – or think them inept – after seeing them at work. BP was smart to let
cameras into the room. – FTN
• New estimate suggests that, if the flow has been more or less consistent since the April 20
blowout, approximately 53.6 million to 64.3 million gallons of oil have emerged from the well. That is
roughly five to six times the amount spilled in Alaskan waters in 1989 by the Exxon Valdez. The new
figures, obtained Thursday by The Washington Post and soon to be officially announced by the U.S.
Geological Survey, indicate that early estimates of the flow rate by the federal government and oil giant
BP were not even close to the mark. – Washington Post
• Financial regulatory reform – Dems spar over best fix for derivatives market ‐ The House bill
could make it less costly than the Senate version for businesses to hedge risks. WSJ
• Corporate America building up record amounts of cash – US companies have built up stocks of
cash that exceed any other time in the history of such records (companies are sitting on $1.84T worth of
cash according to data from the Fed). Cash accounts for 7% of all companies assets, the highest level
since ’63 (WSJ) – as a ‘macro abstract’ theme, stay bullish on corporate balance sheets, bearish on
consumer balance sheets.
• World economy – Barclays’ chief doesn’t see credit crunch part II ‐ “Do I believe the world is
facing today a situation of gravity comparable to the situation we faced in 2008?” Varley said in an
interview with Bloomberg News today. “My emphatic answer to that is, ‘No I don’t.’” Bloomberg