COMPOSITE PMIs
Time constraints prevent me from posting the important Markit Composite PMIs this morning. Here are the links to the pdfs if you care. I will post them separately tomorrow.
Fed Survey: Mortgage Standards Ease for First Time Since Housing Bust
Nearly one in four U.S. banks said they had eased mortgage-lending standards for borrowers with strong credit during the second quarter, the largest such movement by lenders since the housing bust hit nearly eight years ago.
As well, the Federal Reserve’s quarterly survey of banks’ senior loan officers showed that nearly half of large banks and foreign institutions believed lending standards for riskier syndicated loans to companies with noninvestment-grade, or junk, credit ratings were easier than the post-2005 norm. (…)
The survey showed that lenders continued to ease standards on loans to businesses “amid a broad-based pickup in loan demand.” It also showed that more banks signaled easier standards for commercial real-estate loans than had been the norm since 2005. (…)
Euro-Zone Retail Sales Pick Up
The European Union’s statistics agency said euro-zone retail sales were up 0.4% from May. It also raised its estimate for that month. Eurostat previously estimated sales were flat in May, but now reckons they rose by 0.3%. Compared with June 2013, sales were 2.4% higher, the largest year-to-year rise since March 2007.
E.U. retail sales volume was up 0.8% (3.2% a.r.) in Q2, after +1.0% (4.1%) in Q1. Core sales: +0.4% in Q2 (1.6% a.r.) after +1.3% (+5.3%).
Moody’s Says France Likely to Miss Deficit Target
(…) The ratings firm said in a statement that there are “significant implementation risks” to France’s plan to reduce spending by 50 billion euro ($67.1 billion) over three years because many of the measures still haven’t been defined.
Moody’s also noted there is a challenging political environment—around 40 of President François Hollande’s own Socialist majority abstained from voting on the spending cut plan in the Spring—and said growth is weaker than expected.
“While the deficit will remain on a declining trend, the country is likely to miss its fiscal targets in 2014 and 2015,” Moody’s said in a statement. France aims to bring the deficit down to 3.8% of economic output this year and 3% next year from 4.3% in 2013. (…)
Stock Market Sentiment & Technical Indicators – Dr. Ed Yardeni
Lots of good charts in there. Like these:
PUTIN’S RUSSIA
The New Yorker has a longish but interesting article if you care about Russia. It starts slowly but gets better: Watching the Eclipse