How Does “Buy Now, Pay Later” Translate Into “Consumer Resilience”?

Just wait for the coming hangover from the “buy now, pay later” craze

Highlights

• Positive seasonals are converging with Fed rate cut hopes…

• … but extreme valuations and sentiment readings may limit this year’s Santa Rally

• An expanding public sector is inflating employment gains

• Is the actual Fed funds rate closer to 7%?

While We Were Sleeping

Equity markets are on their back feet as the week draws to a close. U.S. futures are in the red, a rarity these days. European markets are off -0.3%, with tech at the rear. Asia was characteristically mixed: gains in Singapore (+0.8%), India (+0.4%), and Taiwan (+0.5%), but there were losses in Hong Kong (-1.7%), Thailand (-0.2%) and China’s Shanghai Composite (-0.1%), while Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Korea were little changed. All in, the MSCI Asia-Pacific index closed with a -0.3% loss while the EM complex is on pace to fall -0.6%. Chinese stocks capped a sixth straight week of decline, the longest losing streak since 2012 — this page 4 FT article sure did not help: Beijing House Price Falls Defy Official Figures, nor did this page 10 column — Beijing Bans Export of Tech For Rare Earth Processing.