CHART OF THE DAY: U.S. Personal Income & Spending

Coincident to this, as Keith noted to the team this morning in a note from London (he’s over there meeting with 20 money managers in 3 days), is that 10-year yields are now flirting with two week lows. The risk of Powell, “twin deficits”, and record treasure issuance, yet the U.S. 10-year yield is flirting with the low end of our risk range (2.80% - 2.94%) heading into February data being reported. #ReflationRollover anyone?

In terms of economic date this morning:

• January personal income came in at +0.4%, personal spending came in +0.2% and core PCE came in at 0.3%.  All exactly in line with expectations; and
• U.S. jobless claims came in at 210K for the week, which was just slightly below expectations at 227K.

What’s the takeaway from that data? Probably not a whole lot.  It’s a month old and basically as expected.  But certainly not indicative of an economy inflating wildly above expectations.  On the negative side of the ledger is that +0.2% in personal spending is an underwhelming consumption number to kick off 2018.