Tag Archives: Featured

In early 2015, a contract dispute between dockworkers’ unions and 29 ports on the West Coast of the US escalated into what was a slowdown strike. Cargoes piled up especially at some of the largest facilities like those in Oakland, LA, and Long Beach, threatening substantial economic costs far and away from just those directly involved. Each side predictably blamed the other for it. Management’s view: The ILWU has...

Nous avertissons depuis quelques années sur les risques de récession. La déflation de la BNS qui s’est installée en 2011 en était un indicateur avancé. Le risque d’un effondrement global de l’économie ne peut être exclu pour les temps à venir. - Click to enlarge Les indicateurs monétaires clés des États-Unis, de l’Europe, du Japon et de la Chine sont en train de clignoter, un ralentissement économique au cours...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.20% to 1.1846 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, April 11(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Between Syria, trade tensions, and the US special investigator into Russia’s attempt to influence the US election, market participants are cautious as they wait for another shoe to drop. The US equity market recovery yesterday has short...

The market volatility this year has been blamed on a lot of factors. The initial selloff was blamed on a hotter than expected wage number in the January employment report that supposedly sparked concerns about inflation – although a similar number this month wasn’t mentioned as a cause of last Friday’s selling. The unwinding of the short volatility trade exacerbated the situation and voila, 12% came off the market in a...

Since 2013 China continues to absorb physical gold from the rest of the world at a staggering pace. Worth noting is that gold imported into the Chinese domestic market  is not allowed to be returned in the foreseeable future. Because ownership and the disposition of these volumes of gold likely will be of great importance next time around the international monetary system is under stress, it’s well worth tracking...

At the end of every quarter, the IMF publishes the most authoritative reserve data with a three-month lag. On Good Friday, the IMF published Q4 17 reserve holdings. A recent article on Bloomberg played up an economist’s forecast that euro reserves would increase by $500 bln over the next couple of years. A review of the reserve data may help us evaluate such a claim, which if true, could have important implications for...

- Click to enlarge Neuchâtel, 4 April 2018 (FSO) – Facts provide the foundation for political and social dialogue. But what happens when instead of facts, purposely spread untruths begin to dominate that dialogue? And what can be done about it, or better still, what can be done to stop it? Possible answers can be found at the conference entitled “Truth in numbers – the role of data in a world of fact, fiction and...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.25% to 1.1807 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, April 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates It did not look so good. The S&P 500 fell about 1.65% in the last couple hours of trading yesterday paring its gains. Press reports indicated that President Trump’s lawyer’s office, house and hotel were the subject of search warrants. A...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Irredeemably Yours… Yuan Stops Rallying at the Wrong Moment The so-called petro-yuan was to revolutionize the world of irredeemable fiat paper currencies. Well, since its launch on March 26 — it has gone down. It was to be an enabler for oil companies who were desperate to sell oil for gold, but could not do so until the...

Since failing systems are incapable of structural reform, collapse is the only way forward. Systems fail for a wide range of reasons, but I’d like to focus on two that are easy to understand but hard to pin down. Federal Government, 2005 - 2018 - Click to enlarge 1. Systems are accretions of structures and modifications laid down over time.Each layer adds complexity which is viewed at the time as a solution....