Sometimes one big event dominates the landscape, like last week when the Fed raised interest rates. Other times a bunch of less-universally-significant-things add up to a meaningful story. And the story that follows here is, of course (given the venue), ominous. First up is the much-discussed US$9 trillion that developing countries borrowed back when the…
Since The IMF ‘blessed’ the Yuan with the same ambivalence-to-currency-manipulation as the rest of the world’s competitive devaluers, China weakened the currency for 10 straight days (a record streak). But the streak is over as tonight PBOC has decided to strengthen the Yuan fix (although admittedly by a small amount) to 6.4753 (barely off the 4 year…
Introduction In his December 8th speech, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz introduced the possibility of negative interests as a policy tool. He was adamant that the Bank was not embarking upon this policy, rather it was exploring the implications of using such an unconventional policy instrument in times of economic shock or…
Top News Headline Stocks end down after wild 700 point range trading. US ends oil export ban. Crickets chirp. Republicans debate, Democrats debate, the nation shudders. Star Wars: The Force Awakens shatters box office records. I visit the mall to Christmas shop, discover the obesity epidemic is not solved, mirrors in short supply. Economic News…
While investors were recently fretting over post-Fed rate hike volatility, I recently opened my car trunk, and it wasn’t a pretty picture. I discovered towels, jumper cables, soccer ball, beach chair, research reports, and even a box of Kleenex. The hodge-podge of items had been accumulating for months, but the path of least resistance to…
One word sums up the stock market from a trend following perspective”UGLY”. It was not easy for bulls or bears…The QQQ closed below the 50 day EXMA and SPY closed below both the 50 EXMA and 200 EXMA. This is not healthy for a bull market. This bull market is almost turning 7 years old….
In traditional feudal systems, serfs were the landless peasantry who worked the land of their feudal lords in exchange for protection. In our present-day neofeudal system, serfdom has a different definition: present-day serfs own little or no productive capital and have few opportunities to ever acquire any. The Marxist term wage-slaves describes those who, lacking capital, have only their labor…
I hear these words a lot: “I just don’t get it, how can Amazon keep going up when it loses money every year?” That’s a reasonable question to ask. Amazon (AMZN) is an extraordinary business, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think. Yes, you can order just about anything you might need, and…
Economic Reports Scorecard – 11/6/15 to 11/20/15 The incoming economic reports ran two to one negative over the last two weeks, continuing the trend we’ve seen all year. That’s one of the worst two week stretches we’ve seen all year. Janet Yellen has been telling us for over a year that changes in policy were…
Financial repression authority Daniel Amerman returns this week to discuss the ramifications of the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate hike in nearly a decade: The key to understand the situation here is that this is not normalizing, and we don’t have a precedent. We really don’t. We’re kind of all being soothed and reassured by the Wall…
