Is everything falling apart? That’s the question after the last week’s sentiment surveys across large chunks of the western world. ISM manufacturing plunged, ISM non-manufacturing dropped below its long-term average, Scandinavian PMIs both weakened with Swedish PMI now pointing at a sharp drop in industrial production (perhaps -10% yoy). And the EA PMI composite was revised down to its lowest level since June 2013. Maybe such deterioration is what’s needed to bring some more aggressive (& hence interesting) reaction from the Fed? For instance, Greenspan’s Fed delivered inter-meeting easing of 50bp back in January 2001 ... (full story)