📕Hobby Life Research Written by "SB"
📌Key Issues of the Moment
✔️Ahead of the retail sales and CPI, two key indicators in the US, consumer inflation expectations fell significantly to 3.1%, falling short of previous estimates.
✔️A senior White House advisor noted that a shrinking US labor force and rising productivity could indicate a future employment slowdown, but also cautioned that concerns about AI are overblown.
✔️Fed Governor Miran stated that inflation and dollar concerns due to tariffs are overblown.
✔️However, reports emerged that China has unofficially ordered the sale of US Treasury bonds.
✔️The US dollar index is currently at 96.879, having reversed about half of its gains since the start of interest rate hikes.
✔️The dollar is weakening as China and other countries begin to move away from the dollar. However, we believe that dollar weakness will be limited until a substantial interest rate cut occurs.
✔️However, the dollar may strengthen following the CPI release this week (Friday, February 13th) and the non-farm payrolls index (Wednesday, February 11th), which is not good for risky assets.
✔️Nevertheless, gold, which had surged approximately 30% since early January, has reversed course and is currently fluctuating around $5,000, indicating that the rapid rally in assets has somewhat subsided.
✔️Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, which had consistently seen net outflows, returned to net inflows as of the February 9th trading day, suggesting a short-term bottom.
✔️Ray Dalio warned that the Federal Reserve is overstimulating the economy, creating a bubble, suggesting that we have entered a risky phase unlike any in the past.
✔️The US market, which had been seeing a shift in funds from growth stocks to value and consumer stocks, has rebounded after reversing excessive losses, but the Nasdaq index remains below its 60-day moving average.
⚖️ Summary
The downward trend in consumer inflation expectations signals a slowdown in inflation, but also a signal of recessionary concerns.
Personally, I believe the CPI, whether it's lower or higher, won't have a significant impact. (It's likely to remain flat.)
However, if retail sales aren't strong, this could be bad news for risky assets.
Funds are shifting from "highly rising assets to less-higher assets."
#International
