May 27, 2025

QuickTakes

Happy Day

Today is a happy day for stock investors. They are pleased that President Donald Trump had a pleasant phone call with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over the weekend. So he postponed his threat on Friday to impose a 50% tariff on the EU on June 1 to July 9. Today, Trump said he is monitoring "positive" steps in trade talks with the region, which has 27 member countries. President von der Leyen said in a post on X over the weekend that the EU was "ready to advance talks swiftly and decisively," while European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said Monday that he had "good calls" with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Another happy development: Yields on super-long Japanese government bonds (JGBs) fell sharply on Tuesday after Reuters reported that the country's finance ministry might issue fewer of these bonds. The 30-year JGB yield fell sharply following the report, dropping 18.5bps to 2.85%. It had traded as high as 3.05% on Monday (chart).

That helped to bring down the US 10-year Treasury yield from 4.51% on Friday to 4.46% today. The widely feared global sovereign debt crisis has been postponed for another day.

Finally, today's release of May's Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) survey showed that the CCI rebounded by more than expected (chart). Much of the rebound occurred after May 12, when Trump halted the most severe tariffs on China.

The CCI survey seems to be more sensitive to developments in the labor market than the alternative Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI) survey, which is more sensitive to inflation. As a result, we closely monitor the CCI survey's employment indicators, especially since they are available a few days before the same month's official employment report. The latest CCI employment indicators show that nearly half of respondents said jobs are available (49.6%), nearly a third said they’re plentiful (31.8%), and less than a fifth said they’re hard to get (18.6%) (chart). These readings suggest that the labor market remains at least resilient, if not surprisingly strong!

All this happy news weighed on the price of gold. Bitcoin edged up to $109,600 (chart). Both remain near their record highs.

QuickTakes Archive

Contact us by email or call 480-664-1333.

Copyright (c) Yardeni Research, Inc. Please read complete copyright and hedge clause.