Five Charts

It’s said that a picture’s worth a thousand words, so what today’s post lacks in actual verbiage it makes up in “synthetic text.”

1) Quant easing. The dollar is getting slagged, at least partially because of concerns about the long-term impact of the Fed’s quantitative easing program. And while it’s true that the size of Fed’s balance sheet has increased dramatically over the last few months, the ECB’s has also increased by quite a bit. Perhaps any readers who are experts in monetary economics can explain why the Fed asset increase matters and the ECB’s doesn’t?

2) Chinese IP. Oh dear. Year-on-year IP is up just 5.4%…no wonder the government has stepped up to the plate with stimulus programs. As is the case elsewhere in the world, it looks like it’s going to gt worse before it gets better.

Next, three charts from Google Trends:

3) Google searches for “McDonalds jobs“. Thanks to reader Mitesh for pointing this one out. What’s a bit scary is that the country with the biggest rise in searches for burger-flipping careers has come not in the United States, but Australia!

4) Google searches for “mortgage broker“. Unsurprisingly, there isn’t much appetite for the purveyance of fresh mortgage debt these days.

5) Google searches for “unemployment benefits“ . It pretty much says it all , doesn’t it?

• Become A Funded Futures Trader