More Good News Out Of Eurozone Economy And By ‘Good’, I Mean ‘Bad’

You know that “global slowdown” narrative that seems to be gradually supplanting the “synchronous global growth” meme that dominated in 2017? Yeah, so that was reinforced a bit on Monday when this hit:

• GERMAN FACTORY ORDERS FALL 0.9% VS. EST 0.5% INCREASE

That’s obviously not great, and it just serves to underscore the notion that the eurozone economy may have peaked earlier this year, Mario Draghi’s “transitory” assures notwithstanding. There was also this:

• Eurozone May Sentix Investor Confidence 19.2 vs Est. 21.0

That’s the fourth straight monthly drop in the gauge, which now sits at a 16-month nadir. The euro fell, reversing Asian session gains:

Although net longs in the euro were trimmed in the week leading up the the Fed meeting, there’s still a sizable position there and Monday’s data was not good news for these folks:

(Goldman)

Separately, the ECB cautioned that the persistence of protectionist tendencies will serve to undercut the global economy. They also warned that the U.S. would suffer one of the worst blows.

As Bloomberg notes, “Benoit Coeure described a hypothetical scenario in which the U.S. raises levies on all goods imports by 10 percentage points, with trading partners responding with the same measures [concluding that] this would reduce American growth by as much as 2.5 percentage points in the first year alone.”

That sounds aggressively dour compared to the sellside simulations I’ve seen, but the overarching point is that rolling back what you see in the following chart is probably a terrible idea, especially at the end of the economic cycle.

But hey, no guts no glory, right? Just ask Mussolini, over here:

"@ilduce2016: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” – @realDonaldTrump #MakeAmericaGreatAgain"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016