The sitting Prime Minister, May
Heard terrible news yesterday
Her plan to promote
A Brexit deal vote
Was halted much to her dismay

This forces her, later this week
A longer extension to seek
But still the EU
Seems unlikely to
Do more than add new doublespeak

In yet another twist to the Brexit saga, the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, refused to allow another vote on PM May’s deal this week. He explained that Parliamentary rules since 1604 have existed to prevent a second vote on a bill that has already been rejected unless there have been substantial changes to the bill. In this case there were no changes and PM May was simply trying to force approval based on the idea that the clock was running out of time. The pound reacted to the news yesterday by quickly dropping 0.5%, although it has since recouped 0.2% this morning.

This has put the PM in a difficult spot as she prepares to travel to the EU council meeting in Brussels later this week. Given that there is still no clarity on how the UK wants to handle things, or at least how Parliament wants to handle things, she will need to seek an extension in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit. However, the comments from several EU members, notably Germany and France, have indicated they need some sense of direction as to what the UK wants before they will agree to that extension. Remember, too, it requires a unanimous vote by the other 27 members of the EU to grant any extension. At this stage, the market is virtually certain an extension will be granted, at least based on the fact that the pound remains little changed on the day and has been able to maintain its modest gains this year. And it is probably a fair bet that an extension will be granted. But the real question is what the UK will do with the time. As of now, there is no clarity on that at all. Unless the EU is willing to change the deal, which seems unlikely, then we are probably heading for either a new general election or a new Brexit referendum, or both. Neither of these will add certainty, although the predominant view is that a new referendum will result in a decision to stay. Do not, however, ignore the risk that through Parliamentary incompetence, next week the UK exits without a deal. That risk remains very real.

One side note on the UK is that employment data released this morning continues to beat all estimates. Wages continue to rise (+3.4%) and the Unemployment Rate fell further to 3.9%. Despite a slowing economy overall, that has been one consistent positive. It has been data like this that has helped the pound maintain those gains this year.

Elsewhere the global growth story continues to suffer overall, as both China and the Eurozone continue to lag. While there was no new data from China, we did see the German ZEW survey (-3.6 up from -13.4) and the Eurozone version as well (-2.5 up from -16.6). However, at the same time, the Bundesbank just reduced their forecast for German GDP in 2019 to 0.6%, although they see a rebound to 1.7% in 2020. My point is that though things may have stopped deteriorating rapidly, they have not yet started to show a significant rebound. And it is this dearth of economic strength that will continue to prevent the ECB from tightening policy at all for quite a while to come.

A quick glance Down Under shows that optimism in the lucky country is starting to wane. Three-year Australian government bonds have seen their yield fall to 1.495%, just below the overnight rate and inverting the front of the curve there. This calls into question the RBA’s insistence that the next move will be an eventual rate hike. Rather, the market is now pricing in almost two full rate cuts this year as Australia continues to suffer from the slowing growth in China, and the world overall. While the FX impact today has been muted, just a -0.1% decline, Aussie continues to lag vs. other currencies against a dollar that has been on its back foot lately.

Speaking of the dollar, tomorrow, of course, we hear from the Fed, with a new set of economic projections and a new Dot Plot. Since there is no chance they move rates, I continue to expect the market to be focused on the balance sheet discussion. This discussion is not merely about the size of the balance sheet, and when they stop shrinking it, but also the composition and general tenor of the assets they hold. Remember, prior to the financial crisis and the utilization of QE, the Fed generally owned just short-term T-bills and maybe T-notes out to three years. But as part of their monetary policy experiment, they extended the maturities of their holdings with the average maturity now nine years. This compares to the six-year average maturity of the entire government bond issuance. The longer this average tenor, the more monetary ease they are providing to the market, so the question they need to answer is do they want to maintain that ease now or try to shorten the current maturity, so they have the opportunity to use that policy in a time of greater need. While this remains up in the air right now, whatever decision is made it will give a strong clue into the Fed’s view of the current situation and just how strongly the economy is actually performing.

This morning’s Factory Orders data (exp 0.3%) is unlikely to have a market impact of any sort. Equity markets have been muted with US futures pointing to essentially an unchanged opening. Yesterday saw limited price action, with both the dollar and equities barely changed. My sense is today will shape up the same way. Tomorrow, however, will be a different story, of that you can be sure.

Good luck
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