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Tuesday, April 30

30th Apr - EU Open: Italy Eases Austerity



Asian holidays + the coming MayDay in Europe… But the event calendar is thick. Sounds like a recipe for low-liquidity market squeezes. I’ll prepare ECB& FED Watch posts next. See last night’s US Close post – long with couple of gems.


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Roundups
News roundup – Between The Hedges
The 6am Cut London – alphaville / FT
Emerging Markets Headlines – beyondbrics / FT
Asia Morning MoneyBeat: Equities Make Hay, Sun or No Sun – WSJ
Europe Morning MoneyBeat – WSJ

MORNING BRIEFINGS
3 Numbers to Watch: German retail sales & jobless, US home pricesTradingFloor
The market will be keenly watching today’s updates on retail sales and unemployment in Germany to evaluate the degree of Eurozone macro risk and the odds of an ECB rate cut on Thursday. Later, Standard & Poor’s updates the latest on US home prices.

Market Preview: EU unemployment and German retail sales eyedTradingFloor
European markets are likely to open firmer Thursday amid hopes of continuing monetary easing by major global central banks. Markets are keeping an eye on the Eurozone unemployment rate and German retail sales data due later today.

Danske DailyDanske Bank (pdf)
Italian government scraps tax increases and signals less fiscal austerity. Japanese data weaker than expected but still suggest a recovery has started. Today’s eurozone CPI should improve odds of ECB rate cut. Italian PM Letta to deliver his message of less fiscal austerity to Berlin. Market movers today: EUR: Italian PM Letta meets. German PM Merkel in Berlin. EUR: CPI for April. ESP: Q1 GDP. DEM: Unemployment. USD: Consumer confidence and Chicago PMI

AamukatsausNordea
Italian ja Espanjan korot normalisoitumassa * Hidas kasvu ydinmaissa jatkuu * Hauskaa vappua!

Aamukatsaus – Tapiola (pdf)

MarkkinakalenteriNordnet
MarkkinakalenteriTaloussanomat

EUROPE
Europe Should Rethink AusterityView / BB
European Union governments are starting to relax their austerity-first approach to economic policy. Better late than never; we’ve been advising them to do just that for months. It’s a shame the new thinking, however welcome, is too limited and incoherent.

Did the euro kill governance in the periphery?voxeu.org
By the end of the 1990s, under the incentive of Eurozone entry, most peripheral European countries were busy undertaking structural reforms and putting their fiscal houses in order. This column argues that the arrival of the euro, and the subsequent interest-rate convergence, loosened a tide of cheap money that reversed the incentives for further reforms. As a result, by the end of the euro’s first decade, the institutions and governance in the Eurozone periphery were in worse shape than they were at the start of the decade.

UNITED STATES
Just a Few Weeks Makes a World of DifferenceTim Duy’d Fed Watch
he FOMC statement should shift to indicate the softer economy and falling inflation numbers; I am watching for how much emphasis they place on the latter as a signal as to the likelihood of easing further in future meetings.  Like most, I don't anticipate an expansion of the program at this juncture.

A slowdown in US lending or a ramp up in shadow banking?Sober Look
Why would banks want to keep all these mortgages on their books when they can blow them out to Freddie and Fannie, who in turn sell them to the market in the form of agency MBS (mortgage backed securities). And who are the buyers? The usual suspects of course - insurance firms, mutual funds, etc., as well as the biggest buyer of them all - the Fed.

OTHER
Investors earn handsome paychecks by handling Buffett's businessOmaha
Interviews of people working for ‘The Sage’.

Can "culture" predict economic development?Noahpinion

Unconventional Monetary Policy Effects on the Exchange Rate at the ZLBEconBrowser