US inflation expectations are slowly but surely becoming unanchored From both survey data and economic statistics you'd have thought that the target had been raised Last time core PCE was below 2%? Feb 2021. That's also the last time supercore has been below 3%

Ineffective altruism, part 2 UK officials discuss fresh aid cuts to help fund higher defence spending - www.ft.com/content/c98a... via @FT Reminder that we already did one wave of foreign aid cuts to house asylum seekers in the UK (see second image)

China/ HK IPO season warming up which means two things i) regulatory crackdowns and ii) probable capital raises

The late opening of polling stations in Peru reduced turnout by 2-5% This cost Aliaga thousands of votes relative to Sanchez, the impact was estimated to be unlikely large enough to bridge the c.21k gap between the two to change the outcome fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/...

UK 5y inflation breakeven is around 3.8% since the war began and UK 50y breakeven is around 3.4%. Extraordinary!

Whether or not we do mass social housing (of say 5m units) should probably depend quite a bit on: - what proportion of market rate is charged to tennants - build cost - interest rates Naturally almost none of the discussion touches even slightly on these variables

Equity/ bond yield correlations are having a dance

The first thing the government tries to do when it encounters shortages in the real economy is to suppress the price mechanism See energy, food, housing, you name it it's the same populist reflex every time

One way increase housing supply is to reduce the cost of provision. That is one of the drivers of the Manchester success story

Unemployment and payroll estimates not looking great LFS +382k unemployment m/m RTI -100k payrolls m/m (provisional) Average weekly earnings broadly softening in the private sector with construction especially weak. Public sector pay timing coming out of the data bringing it closer to private

Another 867 homes not being built in London after Southwark council reject the application "Last year construction started on just 5,891 — 94 per cent below target, a 75 per cent year-on-year decline"

If current account surplus countries repatriate capital then countries with large current account deficits like UK, US are at increasing risk

not enough people are emotionally prepared for if it’s not a bubble

In February there was a near consensus that AI was going to lead to deflation because people would be worried about job losses and cut spending

Such is the brutal logic of voluntary redundancy — the ones who leave are the only ones who can make more elsewhere

The public are bad at quantifying things that aren't very familiar to them on a daily basis Interpreting what the public thinks of different businesses from these numbers is perilous

The fun gilts take that I rarely see is that most of it is inflation rather than term premia where we're pretty typical

"What ultimately determines the inflation path is the government's budget constraints and unless fiscal policy is on a sustainable trajectory, monetary restraint today merely delays and amplifies the inflationary reckoning tomorrow"

I wonder if the MPs saying things like "we've got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond market" say the same thing about the bank who owns their mortgage

High beta Britain

Outside of the US the largest holders of Mag7 stocks are Koreans

This is, per latest OBR forecast, right (chart 1) Part of the problem is that every forecast update borrowing gets nudged up (chart 2) alongside unemployment (chart 3) and gilt yields are unhelpfully self-fulfilling and about to revert to the Nov 2025 forecast (chart 4)

@edconway.bsky.social pointing out a very common mistake that economists and statisticians make People don't experience change in neat year over year changes even if that is the preferred measurement for statistical reporting

Does anyone have a sense for what proportion of S21 evictions were for non-payment that would otherwise have been managed via the S8 process? Are we about to see the systematic markdown of subprime consumers who used to go delinquent on rent but never saw it impact credit scores?

Are the government in control? Do they know what Natural England are asked to do? Do they believe in economic growth? Hard to say

The Renter's Rights Act comes in to force today. Ahead of it a number of, mostly small, landlords have been selling up. 14% of properties that sold were bought by other landlords and returned to the rental market, per Savilles analysis

The cost benefit analysis of the second staircase rule was ~294:1 so presumably adding a requirement for a evacuation lift for new resi building over six storeys is going to push it closer to 1000:1? www.gov.uk/government/c... assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6605c8...

UK tech optimism

"UK proposes cutting IPO timetable by a week to boost listings" Tinkering around the edges is not going to cut it Every little helps but right now we need big levers like cutting stamp duty to zero permanently

What demand destruction?

UK GDP revisions are always up with an average mean absolute reversion of 0.1

Looking forward to another month of whipsawing and jawboning

Nice work OBR!

Annual average regular earnings growth was 5.2% for the public sector, and 3.2% for the private sector. CPIH was an average of 3.3% for December 2025 to February 2026.

Young adults in the UK are living with their parents for longer www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

Drug use in the UK as sampled via waste water analysis What volumes of drugs? What are the trends? Which are most popular by region? What are the intra week trends? www.gov.uk/government/p...

Cooked

I get that British people are more interested in how the outcome of the Hungarian election effects their political ecosystem but I wish there was a little more time spent on for the outcomes in Hungary

Hungary Parliament - prelim results 46% reported: Tisza: 52.3% (135 projected seats) Fidesz: 39.6% (57 projected seats) Seat requirements: Majority -> 100 Supermajority -> 133

UK average weekly earnings (2015 prices) - Feb 2008: £525 - Dec 2025: £526 Earnings have been stagnant for 17y and meanwhile the distribution of income post-tax and transfers is incredibly low (as below)

UK energy production: the more the merrier

AI getting very effective

UK real average weekly earnings using consumer price inflation (seasonally adjusted), 2015 prices - Feb 2008: £525 - Dec 2025: £526

Incred

Extraordinarily the market for new housing in London is broken Berkeley Group, a London developer, warned that "unprecedented" costs and regulation have made projects uneconomic They've stopped buying new land and will slow build rates from here

You would have thought that the state broadcaster would put the Prime Minister's national address on the front page of their website

I expect UK CPI to be 2.8% CPI in April

I've been reading "Diary of a Very Bad Year" and it's taking me ages because every few pages I end up down a rabbit hole I'm really struggling to process the idea of losing money holding capital in a money market fund

Shortage Britain

r without g, the makings of a European fiscal crisis If AI raises global r by boosting productivity BUT europe fails to adopt AI then it loses out two fold