Englund

  The Federal Reserve’s policymakers ought to ask why, with inflation stuck at 3%, investors have so confidently priced in at least two further interest-rate cuts . Core PCE inflation (the central bank’s preferred measure) fell to 3.1% at the end of 2023. Two years later, it’s still roughly 3%. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/is-feds-inflation-target-still-2.html Policymakers could leave their 2% target in place formally, but be all right with never quite getting there. And then some years down the line, they could adopt a higher target. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/inflationsmalet-overges-i-tysthet.html Stockholm och New York 11 februari 2026 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/stockholm-och-new-york-11-februari-2026.html

USA-jobben blev fler än väntat i januari och arbetslösheten sjönk. Dollarn stärktes och räntorna steg på beskeden. Men nästan hela jobbtillväxten – 124.000 av 130.000 – kom inom hälso- och sjukvården och socialtjänsten. Så var det även under större delen av fjolåret.  Utfallen för det föregående året reviderades. Det innebar att 403.000 av de initialt 584.000 nya jobb som rapporterades under 2025 raderades ut. Börsen, som gillar både bra tryck i ekonomin och lägre räntor, rörde sig endast marginellt. Viktor Munkhammar DI 11 februari 2026 https://www.di.se/analys/sprickorna-i-fasaden-vaxer/ Stockholm och New York 11 februari 2026 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/stockholm-och-new-york-11-februari-2026.html

  Financial Times 11 February 2026  https://www.ft.com/content/3735b710-92b7-4390-99e6-b13e4cff2dee Vi tror på europeiskt samarbete och den fransk-tyska vänskapen. Men... https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/12/vi-tror-pa-europeiskt-samarbete-och-den.html

Profits have soared since the pandemic, and the market value attached to those profits even more.  The result: Capital, which includes businesses, shareholders and superstar employees, is triumphant, while the average worker ekes out marginal gains. The divergence between capital and labor helps explain the disconnect between a buoyant economy and pessimistic households. It will also play an outsize role in where the economy goes from here. Greg Ip Wall Street Journal Feb. 9, 2026 https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/capital-labor-wealth-economy-2fcf6c2f The invisible line beyond which many Americans tumble out of the middle class. As one commentator widely credited with popularizing the phrase put it: many Americans appear comfortable on the surface — living in large homes and driving pickup trucks — but are in reality just one bad shock away from bankruptcy, or worse. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/bessent-kill-line-and-k-shaped-economy.html Hur KAN det komma sig att så må...

  11 februari 2026, 08:56 Försvarsbolag pressas efter uppgifter om val i Ukraina Den svenska vapentillverkaren Saab faller över 2 procent efter att uppgifter gjort gällande att Ukraina planerar att hålla val – redan i vår. I hela Europa pressas försvarsbolag. DI 11 februari 2026 https://www.di.se/live/forsvarsbolag-pressas-efter-uppgifter-om-val-i-ukraina/ Recalibration in bond markets  ‘Fears that the economy was overheating were totally misplaced,’ says one chief executive The flat reading on retail sales, which showed that American consumer spending fizzled out at the end of last year, translated into concerns that U.S. growth may not be as strong as previously presumed  resulting in what may be a lower path for both interest rates and inflation this year.  Because the U.S. tends to lead the rest of the world, traders in Europe may be considering what this weakness could mean for the global economy. Vivien Lou Chen Bloomberg Feb. 10, 2026  https://www.marketw...

Global trade and corporate borrowing exploded. And the global financial system, which had been roughly the same size as the real economy through the 1970s, grew rapidly to being more than five times the value of global economic output today. Politically, that delivered rapid deregulation and policies that prioritized assets over income, Shvets argues in his recent book The Twilight Before The Storm.  More people and companies gained access to greater amounts of debt for all kinds of investment and consumption. Shvets’s warning is that AI unchecked will swiftly widen and deepen the resulting social fractures. It’s never been easier to become a billionaire or to sink into inescapable poverty, Shvets told me. Paul J. Davies Bloomberg February 11, 2026  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-11/ai-threatens-the-finance-industry-s-perpetual-profit-machine Shvets book The Twilight Before The Storm https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/12/a-wave-of-new-books-argue-that.h...

  As long as the US runs a trade deficit and sends dollars overseas, foreign countries must find a home for those dollar revenues, with Treasuries remaining one of the main destinations, said Jim O’Neill, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. What’s more, the actual decline in China’s holdings may be smaller than official figures suggest. Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, estimates that China’s “true” holdings of US Treasuries exceed $1 trillion, far above the $683 billion reported by the US Treasury. That’s because Beijing may have obscured its footprint by shifting assets to custodians in Europe. Belgium — whose holdings are considered to include some of those Chinese accounts — has seen its Treasury ownership quadruple since the end of 2017 to $481 billion. Bloomberg February 11, 2026   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-11/china-s-years-long-retreat-from-us-treasuries-flags-bigger-risks 11 februari 2026, 08:56

  A Chinese PLA J-16 fighter jet. One fired flares at a Taiwanese aircraft during an exercise around the island in December © Taiwan Ministry of Defense/AP  In its latest report on the Chinese military — focused on 2024 — the Pentagon said the PLA had “conducted multiple unsafe, operationally dangerous actions near allied aircraft over the last year”, including reckless acrobatic manoeuvres and discharging chaff or flares near aircraft. https://www.ft.com/content/66a59c7c-5a22-482c-9363-71cb016ceb01 How War With China Begins  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/01/how-war-with-china-begins-tsmc.html

The convergence of three technologies has made possible the reinvention of the hydrofoil Hydrofoils cause much less disruption and could therefore be permitted to travel faster. Their proponents believe they could reshape urban transport by shifting traffic from clogged roads to underused waterways. Cities around the world are starting to put these claims to the test. Candela, based in Sweden, is at the forefront of an international array of startups making electric hydrofoiling boats. The Economist 9 February 2026 https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/02/09/flying-electric-boats-could-remake-urban-transport Bärplansbåt vid Lidingö https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/01/barplansbat-vid-lidingo.html

  Stockholmsbörsen inledde med huvudindexen på nya rekordnivåer. https://www.di.se/live/eqt-draglok-pa-rekordbors-skanska-foll-pa-rapport/ Grönt på USA-börserna – teknikjättar starkt uppå t https://www.di.se/live/gront-pa-usa-borserna-teknikjattar-starkt-uppat/

  https://www.ekonomifakta.se/sakomraden/makroekonomi/inflation-och-styrrantor/styrrantan_1208883.html

A question is whether current holders of US debt would be willing or even able to bear the costs of selling it, given the logic of mutual assured destruction (MAD).  If de-dollarizing governments were to coordinate a mass sale of US Treasuries and other assets, the damage to their own central banks and private financial institutions’ balance sheets would be twofold.  A mass sale of dollar assets would drive down their price, forcing banks to take a hit; and their remaining dollar assets would also fall sharply in value. Moreover the euro to appreciate sharply, damaging eurozone member states’ substantial export sectors.  Erin Lockwood Project Syndicate Feb 9, 2026 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sell-america-future-of-dollar-hegemony-by-erin-lockwood-2026-02

Lagarde sade att hon har stor respekt för Villeroys ”personliga beslut” att lämna posten som Frankrikes centralbankschef efter 11 år av ”lojal och hängiven tjänst för både Frankrikes och Europas gemensamma bästa”. Villeroy tar nu över ordförandeskapet för Fondation des Apprentis d’Auteuil, där han kommer att använda sina talanger till förmån för utsatta ungdomar och familjer genom utbildningsprogram, sociala program och yrkesutbildningsprogram. https://www.di.se/live/frankrikes-centralbankschef-avgar-i-fortid/ France’s central bank chief François Villeroy de Galhau is stepping down early to run a charitable foundation,  allowing French President Emmanuel Macron to fill the key role by this summer and before the presidential election of 2027. Financial Times February 9, 2026  https://www.ft.com/content/f7207116-a485-431e-9a8a-163e2d92cde5

All the levers of economic stimulus in America are pushed to the maximum, setting the conditions for torrid overheating and an unstable boom by the end of the year. Bank deregulation, credit expansion, a weaker dollar, lower interest rates, stealth quantitative easing (QE) and neo-socialist affordability gimmicks are combining to stretch the economic cycle and deliver roaring growth in time for the mid-term elections in November. Dario Perkins from TS Lombard compares it to Britain’s “Barber Boom” in 1972. Anthony Barber, the Tory chancellor, unshackled the banks and let rip with corporate tax cuts, insisting that it was safe because his supply-side measures would raise the non-inflationary speed limit of the UK economy to 5pc.  Many cheered him on at the time. It was the zeitgeist. Barber got his boom. It lasted around 18 months. I am old enough to remember the crushing stagflationary bust that followed. “Stagflation” remains a word not uttered in the polite company of the financi...

US payment processing companies account for about two-thirds of card transactions in Eurozone “We are highly dependent on international [payment] solutions,” said Martina Weimert, chief executive of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a consortium of 16 European banks and financial services companies. Financial Times February 9, 2026  https://www.ft.com/content/fcc215bb-b7b8-4a62-87ed-03f603eb3d14 Trump done more to unite Europe than any European https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/trump-om-euroa-5-februari-2026.html Vad är det som har en flagga, en nationaldag, en nationalsång, en militärstyrka, ett parlament och en högsta domstol.  En stat, naturligtvis. Vad är det mer en stat har? Jo, en valuta. Det är därför europas ledande politiker har infört euron.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2018/08/germanys-foreign-minister-heiko-maas.html

In early 1930 the market recovered half of the value lost from 1929. Then things got bad. The Dow was down a third by the end of 1930. It fell by half in 1931.  By 1932 it was down 80% from the 1929 peak.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/09/crash-of-1929-it-was-fomo-plus-debt-its.html FDR’s attempts to revive the economy are viewed as a failure in light of the devastating second depression that occurred in 1937-38. Instead, the Great Depression finally ended with the explosive growth of military expenditures starting in mid-1940.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2018/10/fdrs-attempts-to-revive-economy-are.html

Now imagine what happens when equity analysts — already well known for their corporate obsequiousness /Obsequiousness means excessive, often insincere eagerness to please or obey someone in authority, usually in a way that feels fawning or servile/ and pack mentality — are all listening to the same quarterly earnings report, and using the same one or two AI models to transcribe, analyze and suggest advice based on that call.  If market participants are all drawing from the same models trained on largely the same historic data, it’s probable they’ll not only miss the black swan events that have never happened before, but reach similar conclusions and investment strategies. Parmy Olson Bloomberg February 9, 2026  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-09/anthropic-claude-financial-markets-should-brace-for-ai-groupthink   Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of “S...

So much has changed, and there are so many uncertainties, from the financial (what’s going on with tech stocks?) to the cosmic (what will the new economic world order look like?). To make matters worse, there is no haven — not gold, not crypto, not even US Treasuries. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2025/04/us-bonds-have-never-been-risk-free.html There is a way to manage this environment: Embrace Finance 101.  Recall the basics you learned in financial literacy class in high school, or in that one finance course you took in college, or while getting your MBA, or just from reading the classics on investing. Everything you need to know to manage this market environment is contained in a few nuggets of wisdom. Markets are efficient after all. This does not mean that prices are always “correct,” just that they generally reflect the available information.  Diversify. The so-called Magnificent 7’s growth has been so spectacular they dominate the S&P, and their performance seem...

I december 2024 fick amerikanen Richard Z Wimmel ett brev från sitt försäkringsbolag. Budskapet: hans hus, i en branddrabbad del av Kalifornien, går inte att försäkra längre. Riskerna är för stora. Och han är inte ensam. I New York Times, som skildrat Richard Z Wimmels öde, rapporterades i december förra året att 1,9 miljoner amerikaner fått sina försäkringar uppsagda. När förra vinterns omfattande bränder slog till i Kalifornien stod tusentals drabbade oförsäkrade. Nu varnar Finansinspektionen för att Sverige står för liknande risker, om än i betydligt mindre omfattning. Särskilt bostäder i områden med stor risk för översvämning ligger i farozonen. Bilden är från översvämningar i Gävle 2021, en av de kostsammaste händelserna  för försäkringsbolagen någonsin. Foto: Fredrik Sandberg/TT DN 9 februari 2026 https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/maste-hoja-premierna-sa-slar-klimatkrisen-mot-din-forsakring/ Florida’s housing market in an era of increasingly destructive climate disasters https://engl...

Men bakom de svaga siffrorna spirar en optimism i mäklarkåren om att 2026 kommer att innebära fortsatt återhämtning och stigande priser. Antalet bostadsaffärer sjönk i januari jämfört med i fjol.   Foto: Linus Sundahl-Djerf DN 6 februari 2026 https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/kylslagen-start-pa-bostadsmarknaden-2026/ https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/krugman-why-fed-did-what-it-did-and-why.html

”Landet ska vara rikt, men det ska också komma alla till del. Det är ju också väldigt, väldigt viktigt för oss”, säger Ulf Kristersson. ”Nu vill vi växla upp”, säger Elisabeth Svantesson. https://www.di.se/nyheter/moderatloftet-nu-ska-vi-bli-rikast-i-eu/ Det måste vara besynnerligt för Ulf Kristersson. Antag att du är en svensk statsminister. Att du helst vill åka ut på bussturné i mellanstora mellansvenska städer och prata om alla fantastiska reformer som du har genomfört under snart fyra år. Alla dessa, mer eller mindre vilda förslag, som Manfred Weber och andra politiker framför nu, handlar om att stärka Europa. I praktiken om att centralisera mer. Att ge mer makt till Bryssel. Torbjörn Nilsson SvD 4 februari 2026 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/manfred-weber-en-gemensam-styrka-under.html

The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and Its Aftermath Great Moderation. However, calm never lasts. In 2008 the United States and the world economy as a whole were wracked by the global financial crisis.  The Fed’s response to that crisis was deeply controversial, with harsh criticism coming especially from the political right. The turning of the political wheel has now put the people who were proved wrong about monetary policy in charge of Trump administration policy.  When that bubble deflated, starting in 2005, the economic consequences were severe. Real estate is a very big sector: The plunge in housing prices when the bubble burst wiped out wealth equal to 40 percent of GDP, the equivalent of $12 trillion today.  The plunge in home construction slashed total spending by more than 4 percent, the equivalent of a trillion-dollar plus hit today. The housing bubble was financed in large part by loans from “shadow banks”.  RE: Shadow Banks https://englundmacro.blo...

Våra egna inrikespolitiska prioriteringar behöver ses i relation till hur vi kan påverka och stärka EU.  Det gäller inte minst euron, där den politiska kostnaden för ett fortsatt utanförskap är uppenbar och växande. Fredrik Johansson SvD 7 februari 2026 https://www.svd.se/a/3p6W6e/sverige-bar-ansvar-for-europa Uppenbar? Fredrik Johansson  Krönikör på ledarsidan. Kommunikationsrådgivare och senior fellow på tankesmedjan Frivärld.    https://www.svd.se/av/fredrik-johansson Krönikör på ledarsidan. Kommunikationsrådgivare och senior fellow på tankesmedjan Frivärld.   https://www.svd.se/av/fredrik-johansson Så har vi tjugo år efter folkomröstningen fått en ny debatt om euron. Kronans försvagning är ett allt mer akut problem för svensk ekonomi och svenskt näringsliv.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2023/03/kriserna-har-svetsat-oss-samman-gunnar.html Gunnar Hökmark Sverige bör ta ett första steg och likt Danmark låsa kronan till euron https://englundmacro....

  The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 1,200 points Friday, leading a broader stock-market rebound MarketWatch Feb. 6, 2026  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-closes-above-50-000-for-first-time-after-rough-week-for-u-s-stock-market-c47282f7 Nasdaq Market Cap https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/nagonting-har-hant.html

  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/wall-street-fredag-6-februari-2026.html

Men tillhör den tidigare generaldirektören en utrotningshotad art? Han var ytterst ansvarig för Folkhälsomyndighetens linje, och var den som övertygade regeringen att i stora delar följa den. Men han höll sig alltid i bakgrunden.  Nu är Johan Carlson, den tidigare generaldirektören för Folkhälsomyndigheten, snart aktuell med boken ”Vi mot världen”, om arbetet där bakom kulisserna under pandemin. Söndagsintervjun 6 februari 2026 https://www.sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/johan-carlson-den-sista-ambetsmannen Johan Carlson ”Vi mot världen” https://www.bokus.com/bok/9789179654726/vi-mot-varlden-min-berattelse-om-pandemin-och-den-svenska-modellen/ Relaterat Anders Tegnell – symbolen för Sveriges Coronakamp https://www.sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1499408

FAM kommer att integreras med Wallenberg Investments – bolaget som utvecklar Wallenbergstiftelsernas tillgångar. ”När tillgångarna växer och portföljen blir mer komplex är det ett naturligt nästa steg att konsolidera Wallenberg Investments och FAM i en gemensam plattform.  Det stärker vår beslutsförmåga, vår risk- och kapitalallokering och vår möjlighet att attrahera och utveckla den kompetens som krävs för att bygga värde över generationer”, uppger Marcus Wallenberg, ordförande för Wallenberg Investments. DI 6 februari 2026 https://www.di.se/live/wallenberg-gor-strukturandring-i-sfaren-fam-slukas/ https://fam.se/sv/om-oss Wallenbergägda FAM köper loss sfärens huvudkontor på Arsenalsgatan och representationsfastigheten Villa Täcka udden  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/10/fam-via-agarbolaget-wallenberg.html The Wallenberg family are conspicuously absent from international and even Swedish rich lists. That’s because their vast assets are held in foundations, started out ...

Anthropic has roughly 2,000 employees, says it launched more than 30 products and features in January alone.  Anthropic’s ruthless efficiency comes in part from a paradoxical source: a mission-obsessed culture. It was founded by former staff at OpenAI who believed that company was too blasé about safety, specifically toward the existential risk that AI posed for humankind. The issue morphed into a kind of ideology at Anthropic, with Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei its high priest and visionary. Parmy Olson Boomberg 5 February 2026 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-05/anthropic-ai-safety-obsession-is-its-secret-weapon?srnd=phx-opinion Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of “Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World.” The book was awarded the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award in 2024 Critique: Some reviewers have ...

 It is hard to be a safe haven when trouble starts at home The Economist 5 February 2026 https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/02/05/why-the-dollar-may-have-much-further-to-fall