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Strong US data fuelled further gains for the dollar yesterday as the ECB duly delivered back-to-back 25bp rate cuts. A quiet docket awaits today to close out the week.
US retail sales increased solidly in September likely as lower gasoline prices gave consumers more money to spend at restaurants and bars, supporting the view that the economy maintained a strong growth pace in the third quarter.
The slightly stronger-than-expected rise in sales reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday also reflected sharp increases in receipts at clothing store outlets as well as miscellaneous store retailers. Consumers boosted online purchases and spent more at health and personal care stores.
Spending and the overall economy are being underpinned by solid income growth, ample savings as well as strong household balance sheets. Though labor market momentum has slowed, layoffs remain historically low, supporting wage gains.
Signs of the economy's resilience likely will not discourage the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates again next month, but will cement expectations for a smaller 25-basis-point reduction in borrowing costs.
"Strong consumer spending in September suggests economic growth in the previous quarter was solidly above trend," said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial. "Our baseline remains that the Fed will likely cut a quarter of a percent in both November and December."
Retail sales rose 0.4% last month after an unrevised 0.1% gain in August, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales, which are mostly goods and are not adjusted for inflation, would rise 0.3%. Estimates ranged from no change to an increase of 0.8%.
Retail sales advanced 1.7% on a year-on-year basis in September.
Gasoline prices dropped by about 12 cents per gallon between August and September, data from the US Energy Information Administration showed.
Receipts at food services and drinking places, the only services component in the report, jumped 1.0%. That followed a 0.5% rise in August. Economists view dining out as a key indicator of household finances.
Sales at clothing stores rebounded 1.5% after falling 0.8% in the prior month. Receipts at miscellaneous store retailers surged 4.0%, while online sales climbed 0.4%. Grocery store sales vaulted 1.0% and receipts at general merchandise stores rose 0.5%. Building material and garden equipment store sales gained 0.2%. Consumers also spent more at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument and book stores.
Gains in these store categories more than offset a 3.3% decline in sales electronics and appliance stores as well as a 1.4% drop in receipts at furniture outlets. Sales at auto dealerships were unchanged, while receipts at service stations dropped 1.6%, reflecting lower gasoline prices.
The dollar advanced against a basket of currencies. US treasury yields rose.
A separate report from the Labor Department showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 19,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 241,000 last week, but the impact of hurricanes and a month-long strike at Boeing are making it harder to get a clear read of the labour market. Economists had forecast 260,000 claims for the latest week.
Claims jumped to more than a one-year high in the prior week, which was attributed to Hurricane Helene. The storm devastated Florida and large swathes of the US Southeast in late September. The ebb in filings from Helene is likely to be offset by an anticipated deluge of claims due to Hurricane Milton, which slammed into Florida weeks after Helene.
The claims report covered the week during which the government surveyed employers for the non-farm payrolls component of October's employment report. Economists expect policymakers won't place too much weight on the employment report when they meet in early November. The report will be released days before the Nov 5 US presidential election.
The US central bank embarked last month on its easing cycle with an unusually large half-percentage-point cut in its policy rate, lowering it to the 4.75%-5.00% range, amid growing concerns about the labor market. The Fed hiked rates by 525 basis points in 2022 and 2023 to curb inflation.
"As we have long argued, consumer spending, net hiring, and payroll income have been locked in a resilient and self-reinforcing virtuous cycle throughout this expansion, supercharged by gains in household wealth and labour supply," said Jonathan Millar, senior US economist at Barclays.
"Durable deterioration in consumer spending would require something to meaningfully undermine this cycle, such as increased precaution by consumers that lifts the saving rate or reluctance to hire by businesses, despite solid demand."
Retail sales excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services increased 0.7% last month after an unrevised 0.3% rise in August. These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product.
Growth estimates for the third quarter are around a 3.2% annualised rate. The economy grew at a 3.0% pace in the second quarter.
France's belt-tightening budget delivers a bigger tax hit than the government originally let on, according to new breakdowns that suggest a bigger dent in President Emmanuel Macron's pro-business legacy.
Prime Minister Michel Barnier presented a 2025 budget bill last week putting what ministers said was a 60 billion euro ($65.2 billion) squeeze on the public finances, made up two thirds of spending cuts and one third tax hikes.
The government stressed the tax hikes would be mostly borne by big companies, with a temporary surtax on groups with over a billion euros in revenue, and wealthy individuals earning more than a quarter of a million euros.
But while Barnier's ministers insisted the tax hikes amounted to less than 20 billion euros, the annex to one of their own budget documents released this week puts the tally at 29.5 billion euros.
The new tax hikes, worth about one percent of economic output, are roughly equivalent to the tax cuts Macron has given companies since he became president in 2017 on a pro-business reform agenda.
"The risk, then, is that a major tax-based consolidation will squander Macron's legacy and affect the supply side negatively," said Jean-Pisani Ferry, an early architect of Macron's economic strategy who has since taken distance.
"For this not to happen, business and investors should believe taxes are actually temporary and forgive Barnier for having introduced them as a temporary fix," he said in a note for Brussels think-tank Bruegel.
The discrepancy comes down the government classifying some measures as spending cuts in the headline number and as tax hikes in the more detailed breakdown, said Allianz Trade senior economist Maxime Darmet.
A case in point is a planned reduction in the tax breaks on social security payroll contributions for low-income workers that was classified at once as a spending cut and a tax hike.
No matter how the move is classified, it will hit many small and mid-sized firms that employ a lot of minimum wage workers, which flies in the face of government promises that tax hikes spare them by targeting big companies.
Reductions in incentives for hiring apprentices and the rollback of a temporary tax cut on electricity, which were not included in the government's headline tax hike numbers, will also have a wide impact on companies.
"The government is playing with words to give the impression that they are doing more on spending than revenues," Darmet said.
In France's highly fractured parliament, the government calculated that spending cuts would go down more smoothly than tax hikes, which Macron's party and Barnier's own conservatives are deeply uncomfortable with, he added.
The far-right Rassemblement party, whose tacit support the government needs to survive a potential no-confidence vote, has blasted Barnier's budget, demanding more spending cuts be included.
While the tax shock is bigger than flagged, the spending squeeze is much smaller, as the independent fiscal watchdog was quick to point out.
The government based its spending cut estimates on where spending would have been in 2025 had nothing been done to rein it in - a starting point Rexecode economist Charles-Henri Colombier said was debatable.
The fiscal watchdog, mandated by law to determine whether the government's numbers stack up, estimated the overall budget squeeze was worth 42 billion euros rather than the government's 60 billion, with 70% coming from tax hikes and the rest from spending cuts.
"France has a fundamental problem with really doing something about its spending and even in the current emergency situation keeps window-dressing by increasing taxes rather than cutting spending," Colombier said.
Around 26 million United States voters are part of a “crypto voting bloc” — flagging a pro crypto policy as a top requirement when deciding on who to vote for in the upcoming election, a survey has found.
One in seven — or 16% — of 1,004 respondents said crypto was “extremely” or “very” important in deciding who to vote for and were “much” or “somewhat” more likely to vote for a candidate if they were pro-crypto, according to a survey released on Oct. 17 by The Digital Chamber.
The crypto advocacy group, formerly called The Chamber of Digital Commerce, said respondents comprised of both Democrats and Republicans.
It added at least 25% of Democrats and 21% of Republicans said a candidate’s stance on crypto would positively impact their likelihood of voting for them.
The Digital Chamber founder and CEO, Perianne Boring, said the results should be “a wake-up call for policymakers” as experts predict a tight race for the White House.
“With tight margins expected across key races, this bipartisan Crypto Voting Bloc could tip the balance,” Boring said.
“Voters are sending a clear message — they want smart, balanced regulation that protects consumers without stifling innovation,” she added.
The survey also found two in five Black voters listed a candidate’s crypto policies as an important criteria when deciding who to vote for — more than double the proportion of white voters.
The majority of Republican and Democrat respondents also indicated supporting the crypto industry should be at least a medium-level priority for the new president and Congress.
A third of Democrats and a quarter of Republicans thought it should be either a “high” or “very high” priority.
In a Pew Research report last month, 81% said economic policy would be the top issue that attracts their vote.
Crypto wasn’t flagged as an election issue by any of the 9,720 respondents, but the state of the health care system and appointments to the Supreme Court were the second and third biggest issues for voters, respectively.
Related: Better Know a Crypto Candidate: Kari Lake
Between the parties, voters were divided on what was most important.
Among Republican candidate Donald Trump’s supporters, the leading issues were the economy (93%), immigration (82%) and violent crime (76%).
However, Democrat candidate Kamala Harris supporters were more concerned about healthcare (76%), Supreme Court appointments (73%), and the economy (68%).
The 2024 US elections are slated for Nov. 5.
Singapore’s latest one-year tranche of Treasury bills (T-bills) is offering a cut-off yield of 2.71 per cent, auction results released by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) showed on Oct 17.
This is down from the 3.38 per cent offered in the auction for the previous one-year tranche in July.
Frances Cheung, head of foreign exchange and rates strategy at OCBC, said that the cut-off yield was below expectations and the 67 basis point (bps) drop is “slightly more than the movement in market rate would have implied”.
She added that the latest one-year T-bill result and the latest six-month yield at 3.06 per cent suggest that investors expect the six-month rate to fall to around 2.32 per cent six months later, and “this appears too low to us”.
She added: “The downtrend shall not be automatically extrapolated as a number of factors could affect the level including US dollar rates and the liquidity situation.”
Eugene Leow, senior rates strategist at DBS, also noted that the one-year T-bills take into account a longer period of US Federal Reserve easing and, accordingly, should post a lower cut-off yield than the six-month bills.
He also highlighted that investor demand in the latest round was strong.
The auction received a total of $14.7 billion in applications for the $5.2 billion on offer, representing a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.83.
In comparison, the previous auction received $15 billion in applications for the $5.1 billion on offer. “With the Fed cutting rates, interest to extend duration may be gaining steam,” said Mr Leow.
Singapore T-bill yields hit a 30-year high of 4.4 per cent in December 2022. Yields had stayed elevated during the past two years as the Fed kept interest rates high to combat post-pandemic inflation.
However, when the Fed kicked off its rate-cutting cycle in September with a large cut of half a percentage point, yields fell. The six-month T-bill cut-off yield fell to 2.97 per cent in the first auction after the rate cut, before rising to 3.06 per cent last week.
Analysts had previously said that yields are likely to grind lower over the next few months as they await further rate cuts by the US central bank.
At its rate decision in September, the Fed had pencilled in a total of 50 bps of cuts over the two remaining rate decisions this year, suggesting either one more large cut, or two smaller cuts of 25 bps.
BMI, a Fitch Solutions company, holds a positive outlook for consumer spending in Malaysia for 2025, supported by an ongoing economic recovery that fuels stable real consumer spending growth, according to its note on Friday.
The research firm said easing inflationary pressures and a stable labour market will sustain consistent consumer spending.
Despite current tepid consumer confidence, BMI said recent robust retail sales figures indicate a stable consumer outlook, although a recent trend of easing retail sales requires further monitoring.
"A significant risk to the economic forecast for 2025 is the high household debt levels in the context of elevated interest rates.
"This situation will necessitate that consumers devote a larger portion of their budgets to repaying debt, thereby limiting their spending capacity on other goods and services," said the research firm.
It noted that the consumer spending growth in Malaysia is projected at 5% year-on-year (y-o-y) in real terms, reaching RM952.6 billion (at 2010 prices) in 2025.
Although this represents slower growth compared to 2024, it remains robust, aligning with the country’s economic growth and normalising consumption levels, added BMI.
This growth rate signals a return to pre-Covid levels, with household spending previously growing at a real average rate of 5.2% y-o-y from 2015 to 2019.
However, high debt levels and associated servicing costs could constrain spending, despite the supportive factors of easing inflation and a tight labour market leading to positive real wage growth.
Additionally, consumer confidence has been declining, reflecting a weakened mindset due to ongoing inflationary pressures in commodities such as food and fuel, particularly impacting low- and mid-income households.
Consumer confidence averaged 87.1 in 1Q 2024, down from 89.4 in 4Q 2023, marking one of the lowest levels since 2Q 2022.
Conversely, retail sales data from August 2024 shows a stable outlook, with a 5.9% y-o-y increase, though this represents the slowest growth since April 2024 due to easing sales in specialised stores.
Fitch's forecast for consumer spending aligns with its Country Risk team's projection of a 4.6% y-o-y economic growth for Malaysia in 2025.
Real private final consumption as a percentage of GDP is rising, reaching 58.8% in 2025 from 57.9% in 2021.
The economy faces growth headwinds from fading base effects, pent-up demand, tighter credit conditions, and a weakening global growth outlook.
Nevertheless, Malaysia is expected to post solid growth compared to other markets, aided by a recovering tourism sector.
Additionally, the Malaysian ringgit is forecast to strengthen against the US dollar from RM4.40/USD in 2024 to RM3.80/USD in 2025, benefitting consumers through cheaper imports.
Inflation in Malaysia has been relatively tame compared to other markets, peaking at 4.7% y-o-y in August 2022, with the latest data showing a decrease to 1.9% y-o-y in August 2024.
This is the lowest inflation reading since April 2024, returning to pre-pandemic levels when inflation averaged 2% y-o-y from 2015 to 2019.
BMI's Country Risk team forecasts inflation to average 2.2% y-o-y over 2025, with risks of prolonged elevated inflation potentially eroding household purchasing power.
The Malaysian labour market has experienced robust dynamics since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The unemployment rate in Malaysia was 3.2% in August 2024, the lowest since January 2020, supporting the positive consumer outlook.
Strong foreign investments, an improving tourism sector, and increased activity in key sectors such as agribusiness, electronics, and manufacturing are expected to maintain an average unemployment rate of 3.1% in 2025.
However, worsening economic conditions could elevate unemployment, weakening consumer outlook while high household debt levels pose a risk to consumer spending.
High debt levels constrain future borrowing capacity and impacting current disposable income levels, especially as debt servicing costs rise with increased interest rates.
Central banks raised interest rates during the 2022-2023 high inflationary period, with many markets reaching terminal rates and expected to start loosening over 2025.
Although interest rates will not return to previous historical lows, easing monetary policy will alleviate some debt servicing cost pressures.
Notably, Malaysia has experienced a household credit boom, with household debt at 68.5% of GDP in 3Q 2023, according to Bank Negara Malaysia.
"Similarly, as repo rates and interest rates begin to rise, so too will debt-servicing costs. This would mean households will increasingly have to allocate disposable income towards debt financing, placing downward pressure on consumer spending going forward," it said.
Despite these challenges, the firm said, Malaysian households are relatively well-insured against rising debt costs, with financial assets totalling RM3 trillion (US$861 billion) in 2022, allowing room to absorb rising debt costs if necessary.
Gold topped US$2,700 an ounce for the first time, as concerns over escalating conflicts in the Middle East saw investors flock to safety.
Bullion climbed as much as 0.5% to US$2,706.81 (RM11,625) an ounce, after Israel said it killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the Palestinian group’s attack on southern Israel that triggered a year-long war in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would keep fighting until all the hostages seized by Hamas last year are free, even as President Joe Biden said it was time for the war to end. Investors typically seek safety in gold in times of geopolitical and economic uncertainty.
Haven demand outweighed macro headwinds that would normally weigh on the precious metal, after US reports on Thursday diminished bets on the scale of Federal Reserve easing. Retail sales strengthened in September by more than forecast and jobless claims unexpectedly fell in a separate print, reinforcing the view the economy is nowhere near a recession. Higher interest-rate environments typically pressure non-yielding gold.
Gold is almost 2% higher for the week, with investors also repositioning portfolios ahead of the US election on Nov 5. With both candidates posing different risks to the economy, gold is likely to see further support — no matter whether Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris wins.
Bullion — up more than 30% this year — is one of 2024’s strongest performing commodities. Rate-cut optimism fuelled the most recent gains as the Fed kicked off its easing cycle last month. Robust central bank buying has also been a long-standing pillar of support for gold prices.
Western investors have also helped drive prices higher, after largely remaining on the sidelines in the first half of the year as Asian demand surged. The US central bank’s pivot to looser monetary policy has bolstered the appeal of exchange-traded funds backed by bullion, with holdings on course for a fifth monthly expansion in October — the longest run of inflows since 2020.
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