Good afternoon
Chinese numbers yesterday definitely point to a moderation of growth...Fixed Asset Investment ( + 7.8% ); Retail sales ( +10.1% ); Industrial Production ( +6% ) were all below expectations, and below recent numbers - but obviously, still very supportive of world growth. In the States, the CPI increased by 0,4% MoM - that´s very strong - while labor market numbers have been slightly positive.
But today, Retial Sales provided us with a very negative surprise....Trump-country could be in for something very ugly: Economy slowing down, inflation creeping up!!
Labor market numbers in Australia were very strong yesterday - the economy created 54.000 new jobs last month, of which 40.000 were full-time jobs.
Metals are still correcting, although the metals finsihed the day above lows. There is still a lot of interest in what I call EV-metals: Lithium continues to be the bussword, and cobalt is still trading at highs. Iron ore had a small correction, but all coal types are still at highs. We saw some signs of metal prices stabolizing today - but that could also be due to shortcovering ahead of the wekend, following a pretty sharp correction this week.-
The US$, as you would expect, reacted as well and is attempting to fall through 1.20 Euro again.
We could be in for a volatile week!
Not much from the company front today, and yesterday!
Vale - is having some problems with a large nickel mine in the Amazonas, which got closed today by the government. It´s beingh claimed, that Vale has cheated some indigenous people - well, I guess that is a distinct possibility! Also, the JV-mine Samarco, jointely owned with BHP, will probably only come back on now in late 2018.
Fortescue - Nev Power, Australia´s probably most highly regarded CEO ( certainly in natural resources ), will resign from his job in February 2018. This has been coming for some time, and I was actually surprised, that he has been staying for so long. Nevertheless, FMG fell by 4% - also driven by weaker iron ore prices. Nev has done an unbelievably good job at FMG...he will be difficult to replace. Also, the company hinted today at the possibility to enter new businesses , even outside of mining. Understandably from Andrew Forrest´s view point ( he still controls 30% of the stock ! ) - but I do not believe, that investors do like this kind of noise / uncertainty.
Have a nice weekend
WS