Upward Drift Continues

Not a lot in the way of macro headlines this morning, but US equity futures are modestly higher, although continued weakness in Boeing (BA) is pressuring the DJIA. Chinese equities kicked off the week with another rally of over 2%, sending the CSI 300 to its highest close of the current rally. In the ongoing China-US trade saga, a potential summit between Trump and Xi is looking like it will be pushed back to June.

February trade data for Singapore had good news for optimists on global activity. While both leading indicators and broad gauges of global trade activity have been in pretty persistent decline of late, we note that exports for Singapore (both from its domestic economy, and via broader measures like re-exports and container volumes, both of which are highly sensitive to global trade activity) have not suffered all that much. Certainly, exports are down, and re-exports are off their peak, but container through-put for the biggest Eurasian trade hub has remained very robust, something that would be impossible if total global trade was collapsing.