EM LATAM CREDIT: Latam Airlines: New 5-Year - Launch

Nikkei reports: "Japan's Finance Ministry will hold a meeting for primary dealers of Japanese government bonds on June 20, Nikkei has learned, and what may be on the agenda is spurring speculation over cutbacks to the ultralong-term bond supply."

• That's of potentially heightened interest given Reuters earlier reporting the MOF will consider skewing the composition of its current issuance programme away from super-long-end instruments (which saw a strong JGB rally overnight).

Silver Bulletin notes that President Donald Trump’s approval rating “has improved slightly since the end of April”, noting that the rise is “due in part to a lower-than-usual volume of new polls.” 

• Silver Bulletin notes that the positive trend has “reversed over the past few days. He’s 14 points underwater in the latest American Research Group poll, 5 points underwater in the latest Civiqs poll, and 8 points underwater in the latest YouGov/Economist poll. But overall, most pollsters show little change in Trump’s approval rating over the last month.”
• Ruth Igielnik at the New York Times notes: “Our average has shown a slight uptick in President Trump’s approval rating recently. But there have been few high-quality polls in recent weeks, and the ones we have show little change in either direction between April and May.”

Figure 1: President Donald Trump Approval Rating

Source: Silver Bulletin

Released yesterday, the IFO's May Employment Barometer rose to the highest reading since July 2024, at 95.2 points from 94.0 in April. “The labor market is showing initial signs of stabilizing [...] “Whether this turns into a real trend reversal depends largely on further economic developments.”, IFO comments.

• "In industry, the barometer rose for the fifth consecutive month. Overall, however, the majority of companies are continuing to cut jobs. By contrast, service providers are slightly increasing their headcount, with cautious optimism emerging particularly in the temporary employment sector. In the retail sector, however, job cuts continue to predominate. Most companies in the construction industry are also still planning to have fewer employees, although the number of job cuts is also decreasing here."
• A slowing of the deterioration in German labour market conditions was also observed in the hard data recently (see the bottom chart for contributions of quarterly employment growth), with that milder deterioration most notable in sectors other than public services, education and healthcare.
• Monthly German labour data will be released tomorrow - consensus is for unemployment to have ticked up by 12k in May (vs 4k April) and the u/e rate to remain unchanged at 6.3%.