Recap 1-4-12

~ globalmacrotrading

Main Items:

  • ISCS sees December retail sales up 4-4.5%, revised higher from their prior estimate of 3.5%-4%.
  • Romney won the Iowa GOP primary by a small margin over Santorum.

Overseas:

  • EU CPI declined to 2.8% YoY in Dec as exp vs 3.0% prev
  • Italian Services PMI declined to 44.5 in Dec vs 45.3 exp and 45.8 prev
  • UK Construction PMI improved to 53.2 in Dec vs 51.5 exp and 52.3 prev

Commentary:

On the back of widespread better than expected PMI prints earlier this week, several brokers turned positive on risk assets today. All were nervous however, and includes the unnecessary disclaimer “for now.”

Separately, Vanity Fair & CBS ran the results of a survey that I found interesting. In particularly, the 62% of evangelicals want people to have the same beliefs, compared to the population total of just 28%. Surprisingly, only 17% of Catholics do, well below to population total, while 38% of Protestants want conformity. I added the ‘Everyone Christian’ and ‘One global religion’ rows since the assumption is that if people had to chose one global religion, they would choose their own.

Also stunning is this result, presented without comment:

Published by globalmacrotrading

I am a G20 Global Macro Portfolio Manager in NYC. My background includes stints at a major investment bank, a commodities market maker, and one of the world's largest global macro hedge funds.

2 thoughts on “Recap 1-4-12”

  1. I think something that is pretty spectacular is that fully 15% of Catholics believe the world would be a better place without religion, in line with the number who believe the world would be a better place if everyone were Christian. Not exactly rooting for the home team.

  2. Yeah, that part was interesting. Kinda made me wonder if my idea of average Catholic beliefs have been skewed all this time, or if the survey sample was biased somehow.

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