Tag Archives: Featured

The decline in the global equity market is the most serious since the February and March spill. In this Great Graphic, the white line is the S&P 500. With the setback, it is up a little more than 8% for the year. It managed to recover fully from the sell-off earlier in the year. The fuchsia line is the MSCI World Index of developed countries. It is up 1.25% year-to-date, and it never managed to take out the high set...

The clock really was ticking on this so-called economic boom. A product in many economic accounts of Keynesian-type fantasy, the destructive effects of last year’s hurricanes in sharp contrast to this year’s (which haven’t yet registered a direct hit on a major metropolitan area or areas, as was the case with Harvey and Irma) meant both a temporary rebound birthed by rebuilding as well as an expiration date for those...

A Chirp from the Deep Level Mines Back in late 2015 and early 2016, we wrote about a leading indicator for gold stocks, namely the sub-sector of marginal – and hence highly leveraged to the gold price – South African gold stocks. Our example du jour at the time was Harmony Gold (HMY) (see “Marginal Producer Takes Off” and “The Canary in the Gold Mine” for the details). Mining engineer equipped with bio-sensor ...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.32% at 1.1461 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Although the S&P 500 was unable to sustain early gains yesterday, the largely consolidative session was part of the stabilization of equities after last week’s jump in volatility. Asia and European stocks are also cautiously...

Italy’s structural weakness explain higher level of concern around its deficit target. Each EU member state is currently preparing 2019 budget plans for formal submission to the European Commission (EC) before mid- October. Among them, France and Italy’s budget plans have been raising eyebrows. Why is the EC concerned about Italy’s proposed 2.4% GDP deficit target for 2019 and not France’s target of 2.8%? Is Italy being...

You Actually Can Eat Gold, But Its Nutritional Value is Dubious “You can’t eat gold.” The enemies of gold often unleash this little zinger, as if it dismisses the idea of owning gold and indeed the whole gold standard. It is a fact, you cannot eat gold. However, it dismisses nothing. This gives us an idea. Let us tie three facts together. One, you can’t eat gold. Two, gold is in backwardation in Switzerland. And three,...

Demand for house ownership continues to be high. Cantonal banks and the three leading financial institutes currently hold the lion’s share in the mortgage market. Swiss retail banks may face increased competition by a leading United States bank on the domestic housing market. The Goldman Sachs group is reportedly considering plans to enter the Swiss mortgage market, according to the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper. The...

Key considerations and price for selected currencies distilled into four bullet points.US Dollar   The dollar’s recovery ahead of the weekend was aided by the stabilization of the stock market, where the S&P 500 managed to close back above the psychologically important 200-day moving average. Interpolating from prices, the market does not expect the President’s criticism to alter the Fed’s course. US data highlights...

Here’s the difference between a recession and a depression: you can’t get blood from a stone, or make an insolvent entity solvent with more debt. There are two basic differences between a recession and a depression: 1. Duration: a recession typically lasts between 6 and 18 months, while a depression drags on for years or even decades, often masked by official propaganda as “slow growth” or “stagnation.” 2. The basic...

A Well-Established Tradition Seemingly out of the blue, equities suffered a few bad hair days recently. As regular readers know, we have long argued that one should expect corrections in the form of mini-crashes to strike with very little advance warning, due to issues related to market structure and the unique post “QE” environment. Credit spreads are traditionally a fairly reliable early warning indicator for stocks...