Englund

 För ett par decennier sedan förundrades européer över Italien, där väljarna plötsligt kunde utradera gamla, etablerade partier. Nu är det snarare normalläget i Europa. Frankrike har inte en president som representerar ett parti, utan ett parti som representerar en president. Nu utmanas han i sin tur av andra uppstickare. I Tyskland ska det bli nyval. Där har såväl socialdemokrater som kristdemokrater tappat greppet.  Och i Sverige har väljarna krånglat till det genom att plötsligt rösta fram ett tredje stort parti. Det har i sin tur krånglat till det ännu mer för väljarna, eftersom den enda gränslinje de verkligen fattade var blockpolitiken.  Det är jobbigt, det här. Inte bara för sossarna, som känner sig tvungna att skriva ett nytt partiprogram som förespråkar stram invandring, hårda tag mot brottslighet, NATO-medlemskap och mycket annat som partiet fram till för några år sedan var väldigt mycket emot.  I Syrien står hoppet till att före detta al-Quaida ska visa si...

 Johan Wennström fil. dr i statsvetenskap och gästforskare vid Försvarshögskolan Fokus  13 december 2024 https://www.fokus.se/kronika/vissa-lar-sig-aldrig-hur-revolutioner-brukar-sluta/ Killing Fields https://www.internetional.se/horhus2.html Heder åt Lennart Stridsberg: Massmord och dess orsaker - en liberals testamente https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/05/lennart-stridsberg-massmord-och-dess.html

 — it is adrift, listless in the wake of defeat. Too many elected Democrats seem ready to concede that Trump is some kind of avatar for the national spirit — a living embodiment of the American people. Given the opportunity, for example, to effect a changing of the guard — to promote younger and more aggressive voices like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to leadership, even if it upsets the usual rules of seniority Jamelle Bouie New York Times 18 December 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/opinion/democrats-trump-opposition.html

One of the hottest bits of high-octane financial engineering these days.  In SRTs, a bank offloads some or all of the risks of some of its loans to ease how much capital it has to set aside for regulatory purposes.  The loans remain on the bank’s balance sheet, but the buyer of an SRT typically promises to cover a chunk of the losses if the loans go bad.  The buyers are investors such as insurance companies, hedge funds and (increasingly) private credit funds, which take on the risk in exchange for a fee. Robin Wigglesworth Financial Times 20 December 2024 https://www.ft.com/content/d91d35fc-93ab-4963-8587-7a00fe5c63b4 The deal is known on Wall Street as a synthetic risk transfer https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-deal-is-known-on-wall-street-as.html Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 20 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/rolfs-lanktips-20-december-2024.html

  Jason Zweig Wall Street Journal 20 December 2024 https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/private-alternative-assets-etfs-cf987342 Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 20 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/rolfs-lanktips-20-december-2024.html

Beyond ample anecdotal evidence from asset markets (and, indeed, sticky inflation), formal measures such as the Chicago Fed’s twin indexes of financial conditions have been loosening since March 2023. https://www.chicagofed.org/research/data/nfci/current-data If the Fed hadn’t devoted so much energy to head-faking investors with forward guidance promising to do things the central bank shouldn’t do, those investors would have been warning the officials that inflation remains far from whipped.  Were officials to yammer less at the markets, investors would be free to place meaningful bets about future inflation and send meaningful price signals about what the Fed should do in response.  This is what long-bond investors, who increasingly seem to despair of forward guidance, have already done. They’ve pushed up yields since September in exasperated anticipation of inflation to come. Joseph C. Sternberg Wall Street Journal 19 December 2024 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/does-the-fed-ev...

  The European Union should consider taking bolder steps such as confiscating frozen Russian central bank assets to compensate Ukraine, the bloc’s top economic official said, downplaying risk warnings from the European Central Bank. The EU’s diplomatic service is conducting fresh assessments of the financial and economic risk of confiscating Russian assets and hand them over to Ukraine, Bloomberg previously reported.  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-17/eu-takes-a-fresh-look-at-confiscating-russia-s-frozen-assets Euroclear Ltd., a Brussels-based clearing house, holds the largest tranche of Russia’s immobilized deposits, totaling €180 billion. Valerie Urbain, its chief executive officer, has warned that confiscating assets would be risky. Several member states, including Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, and the ECB remain concerned that confiscation could breach the principle of a state’s immunity under international law and impact the euro as a reserve currency,...

  Godmorgon Mardrömsveckan fortsätter – årets lyft nästan borta Klockan 11.30 är OMXS30 ned 1,3 procent,  det är den nionde av de senaste tio handelsdagarna som ser ut att sluta i moll.  Därmed återstår bara 2,2 procent av årets uppgång, så sent som den 9 december sammanfattades årets lyft till 9,3 procent. DI 20 december 2024 https://www.di.se/live/mardromsveckan-fortsatter-arets-lyft-nastan-borta/ Rolfs länktips 9 december 2024 Novo Nordisk rasar – över 1.000 miljarder kronor upp i rök https://www.di.se/live/novo-nordisk-rasar-efter-studieresultat-over-1-000-miljarder-kronor-upp-i-rok/ KI: Riksbanken sänker räntan till 1,50 procent i sommar Betydligt lägre än vad Riksbanken har guidat för och även lägre än vad marknaden för närvarande prisar in.  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/riksbanken-sanker-styrrantan-med-025.html Oroande signaler från KI KI räknar nu med lågkonjunktur ända fram till 2026. Viktor Munkhammar DI 20 december 2024 https://www.di.se/nyhet...

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-this-treasury-market-dynamic-could-lead-to-the-next-big-leg-lower-in-stocks-2ee66451 Riksbanken sänker styrräntan med 0,25 procentenheter till 2,50 procent. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/riksbanken-sanker-styrrantan-med-025.html Wall Street stänger i sidled Börslyftet efter onsdagens fall kom av sig https://www.di.se/live/wall-street-stanger-i-sidled-nvidia-steg/ Börsen stänger kraftigt ned  – EQT rasade https://www.di.se/live/borsen-stanger-kraftigt-ned-eqt-rasade/ Stockholmsbörsen 19 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/stockholmsborsen-19-december-2024.html Vändningen för svensk ekonomi dröjer och 2025 blir ännu ett år med lågkonjunktur https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/vandningen-for-svensk-ekonomi-drojer.html Liberalerna vill förbjuda import från kinesiska lågprisbolag som Shein och Temu. https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/liberalerna-vill-forbjuda-import-fran.html France's Court ...

The Next Big Fed Debate: Has the Era of Very Low Rates Ended? Fed officials trying to figure out just-right interest rate and some think they might be close to that destination Powell has described recent rate reductions as an effort to recalibrate borrowing costs to a more “neutral” setting.  His framing raises a question that hasn’t been relevant until now: What, exactly, is “neutral” in the post-pandemic economy? The neutral rate of interest, or the rate that keeps the economy at full employment with stable inflation, can’t be directly observed. Instead, economists and policymakers infer it from the behavior of the economy. If borrowing and spending are strong and price pressures are rising, the current interest rate must be below neutral. If they are weak and inflation is receding, rates must be above neutral. Every quarter, Fed officials project where rates will settle over the longer run, which is in effect their estimate of neutral.  The median estimate declined from 4....

  Rolfs länktips 18 december 2024 Om konjunktur- och inflationsutsikterna står sig kan styrräntan sänkas  en gång till under första halvåret 2025 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/riksbanken-sanker-styrrantan-med-025.html Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 19 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/rolfs-lanktips-19-december-2024.html

 Om konjunktur- och inflationsutsikterna står sig kan styrräntan sänkas en gång till under första halvåret 2025 DI 19 december 2024 https://www.di.se/live/riksbanken-sanker-rantan-med-0-25-procentenheter/ Tunga ekonomer vill se dubbelsänkning https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/tunga-ekonomer-vill-se-dubbelsankning.html Bedömare räknar med att centralbanken behöver lätta på penningpolitiken mer än så. Torbjörn Isaksson, Nordea-ekonomen räknar med att nästa räntesänkning sker redan på nästa möte den 29 januari. ”Sedan kan det bli en paus i mars innan Riksbanken återkommer med ytterligare en sänkning”, spår han. Robert Bergqvist tror att räntebanan i praktiken kan bli mjukare. Han pekar bland annat på att både företagens prisplaner och inflationsförväntningarna ligger på ”betryggande” nivåer. DI 19 december 2024 https://www.di.se/nyheter/bedomare-riksbanken-kan-behova-sanka-mer-an-planerat/ Börsfallet tilltar – strategen ser köpläge Swedbanks aktiestrateg Robert Oldstrand. ”Det...

  President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and instead ensure their promises of security guarantees to Kyiv are not “empty”, the EU’s chief diplomat has warned. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative on foreign affairs, said it was pointless pressuring Zelenskyy to consider peace talks when Russian President Vladimir Putin showed no desire to stop the war. Financial Times 19 December 2024 https://www.ft.com/content/6231f02b-9f6e-4054-a461-4c99e8e16f94

  SvD 18 december 2024 https://www.svd.se/a/4BXx0e/liberalerna-vill-forbjuda-temu-och-shein   EMU, EU och Kina https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/temu-eu-och-kina.html Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 19 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/rolfs-lanktips-19-december-2024.html

 säger finansminister Elisabeth Svantesson SvD 18 december 2024 Finansministern: Då tar förhoppningsvis lågkonjunkturen slut Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 19 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/rolfs-lanktips-19-december-2024.html

  Currency selloff spreads to stocks, bonds  and default swaps https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-17/brazil-traders-sell-first-ask-later-as-panic-sweeps-markets

Sidea: Nu råder stor osäkerhet kring räntebanan https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-13/the-fed-s-neutral-interest-rate-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter  “As is often the case, we are navigating by the stars under cloudy skies.”  https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/powell-star-fed-can-move-more-slowly.html Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 18 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/rolfs-lanktips-18-december-2024.html

Riktningen för Riksbankens styrränta är ned mot 2 procent,  bedömer ledamöterna i   Di:s Bostadsråd   Det bidrar till att skicka upp bostadspriserna framöver. DI 18 december 2024 https://www.di.se/nyheter/bostadsexperterna-sannolikheten-for-det-osannolika-ar-hogre/ Spannet 1,50-3,00 procent som vice riksbankschef Anna Seim i november definierade som Riksbankens nya ”neutrala ränta”  – det vill säga en ränta som vare sig stimulerar eller stramar åt ekonomin.  LO:s chefekonom Torbjörn Hållö hade gärna sett en dubbelsänkning på torsdag. Han tycker att styrräntan borde ha tryckts ned till ”neutral nivå” redan i somras. Sven-Olof Daunfeldt, chefsekonom på Svenskt Näringsliv, tycker Riksbanken gör rätt med stegvis sänkningar. Fast räntan borde ändå redan ha varit betydligt lägre än vad den är just nu, tycker han. – Risken är att hushåll tycker läget är så allvarligt att de väljer att spara i stället för att konsumera, säger han. DN/TT 10 December 2024 https:...

  David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, has condemned the Kremlin’s “gangster threat” against The Times after the newspaper defended Ukraine’s assassination of a senior Russian general in Moscow. Telegraph 18 ecember 2024 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/18/russia-ukraine-zelensky-putin-war-latest-news16/ Fed sänker styrräntan med 25 punkter till spannet 4,25-4,50  Men skruvar upp räntebanan. S&P 500 backar  Two cuts for 2025 if the economy grows steadily and inflation continues to decline.  In September, officials had penciled in around four cuts next year. https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/fed-cuts-interest-rates-again-but-officials-expect-fewer-reductions-in-2025-70562fac What’s the Fed’s ‘Neutral’ Interest Rate? https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/whats-feds-neutral-interest-rate.html Tunga ekonomer vill se dubbelsänkning https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/tunga-ekonomer-vill-se-dubbelsankning.html Long-dated Treasury y...

  Nigel Farage said on Tuesday that Elon Musk was giving “serious thought” to providing a donation to his Reform UK party, as it seeks to bolster ties with president-elect Donald Trump. Financial Times 17 December 2024 https://www.ft.com/content/44e54af6-4976-429b-97db-695a817a2de6 När Nigel Farage och jag år 2002 talade i Westminster Abbeys kyrksal https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2021/01/i-dag-31-december-2020-lamnar.html

  Defence groups and military face questions over piloted aircraft at a time when drones are playing a bigger role in aerial combat Financial Times 17 December 2024 https://www.ft.com/content/4598afaf-8f1c-45b3-8e69-d4b246ebeb92  Ett nytt stridsflyg, som ska ersätta Gripensystemet https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/ett-nytt-stridsflyg-som-ska-ersatta.html

  This Market Has Me Scared When investors are wildly optimistic, it is much harder for the market to rise—everyone’s already got a lot of stocks—and much easier for it to fall on any hint that they might be wrong.  I don’t know what the trigger might be, but it doesn’t need to be much. Other signs of optimism. Investment newsletter writers have rarely been more bullish or less bearish Some of the best-known bears have given up.   David Rosenberg of Rosenberg Research didn’t actually say the fateful words “this time is different” but he did write that “traditional valuations, at the least, are not that helpful right now.” This time will be different.  Rosenberg thinks investors have shifted away from the standard metric of price against one-year forward earnings to look further out because of the prospects for an AI-driven productivity boom.   None of these points are proof that the market must fall, let alone that it will happen soon.  But I don’...

  The benchmark yield may first reach 5% in the first quarter of 2025 before potentially climbing further “Is a 6% 10‑year Treasury yield possible? Why not? But we can consider that when we move through 5%,” wrote Husain, who helps the money manager oversee $187 billion. His latest vision for a 6% yield appears even more bearish than some of his peers.  ING Groep NV said the 10-year yield may test 5% to 5.5% next year, while Franklin Templeton and JPMorgan Asset Management said 5% was possible. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-17/treasury-yields-at-6-are-possible-on-fiscal-risks-t-rowe-says Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 17 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/rolfs-lanktips-17-december-2024.html

  Karin Olander DI 17 december 2024 https://www.di.se/nyheter/perfekt-storm-bakom-europas-carmageddon/ Tillbaka till Rolfs länktips 17 december 2024 https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/12/rolfs-lanktips-17-december-2024.html

  Nevertheless, writing in Nature, a journal, in March 2024, he confessed to being humbled by his inability, and that of his colleagues, to understand the extraordinary 12 months through which they had just lived.  The year 2023 had been around 0.2°C (0.4°F) hotter than had been expected. Not just humbled: worried, too.  If climate modellers’ accumulated knowledge and spiffy models could not explain what had just happened, it might mean that climate change had pushed the workings of Earth into “uncharted territory…fundamentally altering how the climate system operates”.  Both the speed of climate change and the workings of the climate might be changing.  The future might look even worse than it used to. But the case is still not closed. In the next few weeks he expects modellers at GISS and elsewhere to start trying to pull them all together into a coherent narrative in new climate-model runs that use the most up-to-date data on both sulphur emissions and the re...

med såväl kraftigt vinstlyft som sänkt styrränta. Tyvärr har det varit en osannolik kombination.  Börjar det barka nedåt blir det trångt i dörren.  Då blir börsens ”zebror” snabbt uppätna.  Förvaltarna kan få sparken och zebrorna bli uppätna av lejon. Bägge rör sig i flock och nyckeln är därför var de ska stå i relation till de andra.  I säkra tider käkar de aggressiva zebrorna i utkanten av flocken bäst medan de som trängs i mitten får halvt uppätet och nedtrampat gräs.  Men en dag kommer lejonen och zebrorna i utkanten slutar som lejonlunch. De spinkiga i mitten har visserligen ätit sämre, men de lever fortfarande.”   zebrorna inför 2025 extremt tätt packade i mitten av flocken.  alla 18 strateger tror på stigande bolagsvinster 2025. Hela 15 av dem spår ökningar i det snäva intervallet av 10–14 procent.  sedan 2000, har strategerna som grupp alltid förutspått att börsen ska stiga.  Mikael Vilenius DI 17 december 2024 https://www.di.se/...