Fed's Musalem pushes back on 50bp rate cut in Sept - “unsupported by the current state of the economy and the outlook for the economy.” - "outlook" focus rejects argument that they're too backward looking (& vague handwaving about using outdated models) bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Deja Vu all over again from Macron..... bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Does Waller surprisingly only voting for 25bp cut, not supporting Miran's 50bp cut vote, incur Trump's ire & so bar him from succeeding Powell? - he values his professional reputation too much to mirror Miran's crazily low dots (which only make sense if Trump crashes economy)

UK PMI details add to dovish BoE tilt from downside headlines. But MPC will want to see hard data (inflation expectations worry) - output prices indicate sharper CPI fallback than BoE think. But services input prices still high. - employment PMI suggest -50k jobs. But bottoming

Powell repeats last week's presser views - no risk-free path for policy (upside inflation risks vs downside employment risks) - Tariffs “one-time pass-through” price rises SO FAR been smaller/later But more forthright rebuttal of accusations of Fed being political "a cheap shot"

Deja deja vu for Macron & French fiscal problems as Lecrornu resigns after joke new cabinet attract internal criticism. Fresh parliamentary elections now look preferable to another PM facing same backdrop, but could get worse. Macron will resist resigning bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

🎥 What on earth are rare earths? Why do they matter so much? Why do they nearly all come from China? And how worried should we be about the latest chapter in the trade war? These and more questions answered in my latest primer👇

Strategic mistake of letting China dominate rare earth production, in part due to high CO2 outputs as well as Chinese vision, but still nice charts. And good point that Bitcoin falls on trade tensions, vs gold strength, is important weakness for US bloomberg.com/opinion/newsle…

Right kind of downside surprise: headline & core CPI 0.1pp below expect at 0.31% & 0.23% mm -food & new cars only 0.2%, used cars -0.4% -apparel 0.7% (vs 0.5) -OER 0.1pp m/m, 3.8% y/y low since '21 -but supercore 0.35%, in line with 3m avg of 0.34% - Airfare 2.7% m/m but 5.1% yy

BoE: good case to cut, but requires fudging convention to not preempt fiscal policy changes (trust Reeves' large non-inflationary tightening hints) & ignore: -high inflation expections -mixed wage signals -better growth, employ signals -data uncertainty linkedin.com/posts/mark-a-3…

US Black Friday sales looking OK, despite concerns about weakening labor market & K-shaped economy - Redbook retail sales spike to 7.6% y/y, strongest since Dec 2022 - Mastercard SpendingPulse: retail sales ex-autos up 4.1% y/y on BF (on-line 10.4%, in-store 1.7%)

Check out my #ECB preview, which focuses on subdued EA credit dynamics and EUR strength linkedin.com/posts/mark-a-3…

Check out my thoughts on US dollar dynamics after Warsh's appointment linkedin.com/posts/mark-a-3…