Tausi Insider

U.S. consumer sentiment fell in November, pulled down by persistent worries about inflation and higher borrowing costs, a survey showed on Friday. The University of Michigan’s preliminary November reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment came in at 54.7, down from 59.9 in the prior month. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a preliminary reading of 59.5. The survey’s reading of one-year inflation expectations edged up to 5.1 per cent from 5.0 per cent in October. The survey’s five-year inflation outlook rose to 3.0 per cent from 2.9 per cent in October. https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-s-consumer-sentiment-falls-in-november-inflation-expectations-rise/?feed_id=426210&_unique_id=649acd6a29cb9

A man looks at a Bloomberg terminal. BEN FATHERS/AFP/Getty Images David McLean is the Owner of McLean Asset Management and Manager of the ROMC Fund . Active investment funds have been overcharging investors for decades. Nowhere is this more prominent than in the alternative fund category, colloquially known as hedge funds. Investment management used to be a profession. Today, it’s a business. Traditionally, fund management companies offered but one fund, managed for long-term maximum real return after taxes, in order to increase purchasing power for savers. Today, a typical manager offers hundreds of funds. And as what used to be a craft devolves into a numbers game, the whole industry has weakened. Assets in the hedge-fund industry have fallen by nearly US$220-billion since the end of 2021, with global economic conditions leading to poor performance, and investors redeeming funds in droves as a result. Two of the world’s richest, most successful investment managers, Warren Buffett a...

Norway’s oil and gas firms have raised their investment forecasts for 2022 and 2023 as more development plans are being made, a national statistics office (SSB) survey showed on Thursday. The country’s biggest business sector now expects to invest 175.3 billion Norwegian crowns ($17.50-billion) in 2022, up from a forecast of 172.8 billion made in August, the SSB said. Next year’s investments are seen at 149.7 billion crowns, up from a previous view of 135.3 billion, but the figure is expected to increase as companies plan to approve more projects by the end of this year, it added. Spending on new offshore fields is only included in the survey when companies submit plans for development and operation (PDO) to the authorities. Oil companies are expected to approve more than a dozen new projects by the end of this year, when Norway’s temporary tax incentives, which were approved in 2020 to support offshore investments, expire. As a result, the estimate for 2023 will likely increase sign...

Executives at companies across 20 major economies see the Ukraine conflict speeding up the pace of the transition to cleaner energy, rather than slowing it down, a survey by Britain-based law firm Ashurst found. The findings counter fears that bans on Russian natural gas following its invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a special operation, are driving up demand for coal for heat and power generation and hampering investment in wind and solar power. “The need to ensure greater energy security made evident by the crisis is likely to lead to a quicker energy transition, not a slowdown,” Ashurst said in a report released on Wednesday. More than 75 per cent of 1,999 senior executives surveyed across Group of 20 (G20) countries expected the Ukraine conflict would speed up energy transition in their country, while 12 per cent predicted it would slow transition, Ashurst said. Companies and banks were driving investment in renewable power, particularly in such countries as Brazil, India ...

U.S. consumer confidence eased further in November amid persistent worries about the rising cost of living, a survey showed on Tuesday. The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index fell to 100.2 this month from 102.2 in October. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index at 100.0. Still, the index remains above its COVID-19 pandemic lows. It places more emphasis on the labor market, which remains tight. Consumers’ 12-month inflation expectations increased to 7.2 per cent from 6.9 per cent last month. “Inflation expectations increased to their highest level since July, with both gas and food prices as the main culprits,” said Lynn Franco, senior director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board in Washington. “The combination of inflation and interest rate hikes will continue to pose challenges to confidence and economic growth into early 2023.” https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-s-consumer-confidence-slips-in-november-inflation-expectations-rise/?feed_id=33...

The downturn in manufacturing activity across the euro zone eased in November, according to a survey which suggests while the bloc’s factories still face a harsh winter it may not be as bad as initially feared. S&P Global’s final manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 47.1 from October’s 46.4, but was below a preliminary reading of 47.3 and under the 50 mark separating growth from contraction. An index measuring output, which feeds into a composite PMI due on Monday and seen as a good guide to economic health, rose to 46.0 from 43.8, marking its sixth month of sub-50 readings. “The PMI signals some welcome moderation in the intensity of the euro zone manufacturing downturn in November, which will support hopes that the region many not be facing a winter downturn as severe as previously anticipated by many,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global. Suggesting there won’t be a quick revival in the industry new orders fell sharply and a chun...

More than half of Chinese say they will put off travel abroad, for periods from several months to more than a year, even if borders reopened tomorrow, a study showed on Tuesday, a sign that consumer recovery from COVID-19 measures will take time. Mainland China retains some of the world’s most stringent measures on PCR testing and quarantine for international travellers, despite some domestic easing of curbs after last month’s unprecedented COVID-19 protests. Fear of infection with the disease was the top concern of those saying they would postpone travel in a survey of 4,000 consumers in China by consultancy Oliver Wyman, with worries about changes to domestic re-entry guidelines in second place. “People have become cautious,” said Imke Wouters, a retail and consumer goods partner at the firm. “So even when they can travel, we don’t think they will come back right away.” As many as 51 per cent of those surveyed plan to delay international travel. And when they do, short-haul destina...

U.S. consumer sentiment improved in December amid recent gains on the stock market, while inflation expectations eased to a 15-month low, a survey showed on Friday. The University of Michigan’s preliminary December reading on the overall index of consumer sentiment came in at 59.1, up from 56.8 in the prior month. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a preliminary reading of 56.9. The survey’s reading of one-year inflation expectations fell to 4.6%, the lowest reading in 15 months, from 4.9% in November. Its five-year inflation outlook was unchanged at 3.0% in November. https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-s-consumer-sentiment-improves-in-december/?feed_id=329492&_unique_id=642f5678bec65

Last month Governor Tiff Macklem said, “decisions to raise the rate, or to pause and assess the impact of past rate increases, will depend on incoming data and our judgments about the outlook for inflation.” Blair Gable/Tausi Insider Canada’s gravity-defying job market in December raises a burning question. Just what are Canadian business owners thinking? That’s what the top officials at the Bank of Canada must be asking, after Statistics Canada’s release Friday of new data showing that employment jumped by 104,000 jobs last month. That was only, oh, about 100,000 more than economists had anticipated. The entire increase came from private-sector employers. The central bank needs to figure out – fast – why businesses keep loading up on staff, despite widely held expectations that the economy will grind to a halt, even a recession, in the first half of 2023. With a little over two weeks to go until the next interest rate decision, how the bank interprets the head-scratching labour mark...

The Canadian dollar CADUSD was little changed against its U.S. counterpart on Monday and bond yields fell as a Bank of Canada survey showed businesses growing more pessimistic about the economic outlook. The loonie was trading nearly unchanged at 1.34 to the greenback, or 74.63 U.S. cents, after moving in a range of 1.3353 to 1.3417. Most Canadian businesses expect a mild recession over the next year because higher interest rates are curbing investment plans and consumer spending, while at the same time more see inflation staying high for longer, the BoC said. The survey “was largely downbeat on the economic outlook,” strategists at TD Securities, including Andrew Kelvin, said in a note. “As much as recent readings on employment and prices argue for additional tightening, the survey data very much suggests that the Bank may be quite close to the end of its tightening cycle.” Money markets expect the BoC’s benchmark interest rate to peak at 4.50%, after it was raised last month to 4.2...

Canadian business and consumer sentiment continues to sour in the face of rising interest rates, while expectations of future inflation have begun to level off. These factors could influence the Bank of Canada as it considers slowing, or perhaps pausing, interest rate hikes in the coming weeks. A pair of surveys released by the central bank on Monday show consumers are cutting back on spending and many companies expect a slowdown in sales. The majority of respondents to both surveys believe the Canadian economy will enter a recession in the coming year, although most expect it will be a mild to moderate slowdown. The Business Outlook Survey, conducted from mid-November to early December, also showed that companies are experiencing less intense labour and supply chain constraints. That suggests inflationary pressures are easing. While the pair of surveys paint a downbeat picture of the Canadian economy at the end of 2022, they suggest the Bank of Canada’s interest rate hikes are havin...

Canadian business and consumer sentiment continues to sour in the face of rising interest rates, while expectations of future inflation have begun to level off. These factors could influence the Bank of Canada as it considers slowing, or perhaps pausing, interest rate hikes in the coming weeks. A pair of surveys released by the central bank on Monday show consumers are cutting back on spending and many companies expect a slowdown in sales. The majority of respondents to both surveys believe the Canadian economy will enter a recession in the coming year, although most expect it will be a mild to moderate slowdown. The Business Outlook Survey, conducted from mid-November to early December, also showed that companies are experiencing less intense labour and supply chain constraints. That suggests inflationary pressures are easing. While the pair of surveys paint a downbeat picture of the Canadian economy at the end of 2022, they suggest the Bank of Canada’s interest rate hikes are havin...

A worker arranges slabs in the factory at IceStone, a manufacturer of recycled glass countertops and surfaces, in New York, on June 3, 2021. ANDREW KELLY/Reuters New York State manufacturing contracted sharply in January as orders collapsed and employment growth stalled, pointing to continued weakness in national factory activity, and little improvement was expected over the next six months. The survey from the New York Federal Reserve on Tuesday offered an early read of conditions in one of the sectors hardest hit by the Federal Reserve’s fastest interest rate hiking cycle since the 1980s. It showed slumping demand and improved raw material supplies slowing inflation at the factory gate. National manufacturing has been shrinking since November, according to data from the Institute for Supply Management. “A variety of manufacturing surveys have been weak across recent months and the Empire State survey suggests that this weakness continued, or perhaps intensified, early this year,” s...

New research suggests a four-day week may be gaining mainstream momentum in corporate Canada as workplaces continue to fine tune post-pandemic schedules and working conditions. A survey by recruitment firm Robert Half found 91 per cent of senior managers polled say they support a four-day work week for their team. It found the majority of managers also anticipate their company will transition to a shorter working week within the next five years. The poll also found nearly three-quarters of workers would put in four 10-hour days in exchange for an extra day off a week. Mike Shekhtman, senior regional director with Robert Half, says a shorter work week could help with employee recruitment and retention. He says giving workers the option to work a four-day week and the autonomy to create their own schedule could also boost morale and productivity. https://www.tausiinsider.com/four-day-work-week-gaining-mainstream-momentum-in-corporate-canada-survey-suggests/?feed_id=323420&_uni...