The latest from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the UK Telegraph
He says:
- World shipping has fallen into a deep slump over the late summer
- Dashing hopes of a quick recovery from the global trade recession earlier this year
- Freight rates for container shipping from Asia to Europe fell by over 20pc in the second week of August, even though trade volumes should be picking up at this time of the year
- The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) for routes to north European ports crashed by 23pc in five trading days
- The storm in the shipping industry comes as the Bloomberg commodity index drops to a fresh 13-year low and the MSCI index of emerging market equities plumbed depths not seen since August 2009
- A closely-watched gauge of emerging market currencies has fallen for the eighth week - the longest run of unbroken declines since the beginning of the century - led by the Malaysian Ringgit, the Russian rouble and the Turkish lira
Much more from AEP at the link
Get your pessimism hats on!
And, read to the end where AEP backpedals
Other indicators are less worrying.
Both credit and key measures of the money supply are rising briskly in Europe, the US, and latterly in China as well, pointing to a recovery later this year. These forces may prove to be more powerful in the end.
