Tag Archives: Featured

Stock Markets EM FX was mixed on Friday but capped off a largely losing week. MYR, CLP, and CNY were the best performers over the last week, while ARS, TRY, and ZAR were the worst. We expect EM FX to continue weakening, but note that with very few fundamental drivers this week, we may see some consolidation near-term. Stock Markets Emerging Markets, June 13 - Click to enlarge Singapore Singapore reports May...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Wrong-Way Event. Last week we said something that turned out to be prescient: This is not an environment for a Lift Off Event. An unfortunate technical mishap interrupted the latest moon-flight of the gold rocket. Fear not true believers, a few positive tracks were left behind. [PT] Fundamental Developments The price of...

Falling momentum in new car sales, together with the threat of US tariffs is adding to the uncertainty facing the European car industry. The motor vehicle industry is of major importance to the EU economy and to global trade. According to Eurostat, total exports (to countries outside the EU) amounted to EUR205bn in 2017. Germany accounted for 52% of total motor exports. The US was the largest destination for EU motor...

A report by The Boston Consulting Group highlights the size of Switzerland’s personal offshore wealth management sector. ©-Valeriya-Potapova-_-Dreamstime.com_ - Click to enlarge Total personal offshore wealth grew by 6% to reach US$8.2 trillion in 2017. US$2.3 trillion (28%) of this was managed in Switzerland. The top three offshore centres: Switzerland ($2.3 trillion), Hong Kong ($1.1 trillion) and Singapore ($0.9...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.40% to 1.1533 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 18(see more posts on EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates The US dollar is rising against most of the major and emerging market currencies. The prospects of escalating trade tensions and the divergence of policy that was confirmed by the major central banks are disrupting the markets. Norway’s...

All three of the major central banks met last week and confirmed that monetary policy would continue to diverge for at least another year.  The clarity of the trajectory of monetary policy reduces the impact of high-frequency economic data. There are three major disruptive forces the make for a challenging investment climate just the same: the US policy mix, trade tensions, and immigration. The mix of tighter monetary...

Summary US-China trade tensions are rising. Pakistan devalued the rupee for a third time since December. Bulgaria will seek to join the eurozone banking union and ERM-2 simultaneously. The National Bank of Hungary appears to have tilted more hawkish. Newly elected Egyptian President El-Sisi shuffled his cabinet. Argentina has a new central bank chief after Federico Sturzenegger resigned. Chile central bank signaled...

Bad Hair Day Produces Positive Divergences On Friday the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China was apparently escalated by a notch to the next level, at least verbally. The Trump administration announced a list of tariffs that are supposed to come into force in three week’s time and China clicked back by announcing retaliatory action. In effect, the US government said: take that China, we will now really hurt...

L’histoire de la construction de l’Union européenne est avant tout une histoire d’endettement public. La preuve en un graphique: Le volume cumulée d’endettement de l’UE atteint en 2017 le chiffre respectable de 12, 46664 billions d’euros (à ne pas confondre avec le billion américain!). Cela revient à  un endettement cumulé de 12 466 640 000 000 euros, soit 12 trillions d’euros (référence de mesure US) Maintenant, la...

The bubbles in assets are supported by the invisible bubble in greed, euphoria and credulity. Well, folks, here we go again: we have a double-bubble economy in housing and stocks, and a third difficult-to-chart bubble in greed, euphoria and credulity. Feast your eyes on Housing Bubble #2, a.k.a. the Echo Bubble: S&P/Case-Shiller 2000-2018 - Click to enlarge Here’s the S&P 500 stock index (SPX): no bubble...