Most everyone in America is against Yet Another War. Is Trump pulling a Bush 1, Bush 2, Obama, Clinton, and Roosevelt? Polls say just 19% of Trump voters want this to happen. If he does, it will likely solidify the Mullah’s rule over Iran for the next 30 years, due to the backfire effect. “They” tried shooting Trump. Result: Trump wins the election. Most of America isn’t interested in fighting the war Bibi started with Iran, while our AIPAC-funded “Congress”, along with a collection of Bomb Iran “influencers, have disclosed exactly who they are. Not a good look for them.
Consumer Economy
Retail Sales (RSAFS); $715B -6.6B, (-0.92% m/m)
Industrial Production (INDPRO); 103.6 -0.23 (-0.22% m/m)
INDPRO (an index) fell this month – it has been slowly moving lower since February. Normal INDPRO growth during non-recessions is around 2-5% per year. Flat-to-declining INDPRO suggests recession.
Retail Sales (a dollar amount, seasonally adjusted) fell fairly briskly (11% decline, when annualized), but if you look at the unadjusted version (RSAFSNA), it actually did pretty well (+4.30% m/m). The unadjusted version does not look recessionary.
Kinda interesting how the unadjusted retail sales screams higher just before Christmas. Not that Christmas is commercialized or anything.
Credit & Rates
Fed Balance Sheet (WALCL); 6.681T +3.9B (+0.06% w/w)
Total Bank Credit (TOTBKCR); 18.437T +38.8B (+0.21% w/w)
30 Year Mortgage Rate (MORTGAGE30US); 6.81% -3 bp
10 Year Treasury (DGS10); 4.38% -3 bp (mixed trend)
20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT); +0.19% (mixed trend)
No Fed QT this week.
Bank credit, after being mostly flat (hinting at recession) for the past 5 weeks, expanded sharply (10% annualized) this week.
No rate cut by the Fed at Wednesday’s meeting.
That said, there was a big (13 bp) move lower in the 3-month Treasury this week, most of which occurred on Wednesday. I forget who said it, but the Fed doesn’t lead the market; it follows. The (effectively) 13 bp cut in the 3-month now has the 3-month (4.32%) slightly below the Fed Funds Rate (4.33%). You can listen to the hour-long press conference or look at the chart below.
by westcoastjan 
