Tag Archives: Featured

Petroplus went bankrupt after banks pulled the plug on financing (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Climate fund payments made to now-bankrupt Swiss oil refiner Petroplus cannot be reclaimed by creditors as they constituted a business arrangement that brought benefits to contributors as opposed to a gift. This ruling from Zurich’s highest court has stopped a CH15 million ($16 million) claim in its tracks, barring...

– US needs to borrow almost $300 billion this week alone – This is the largest debt issuance since 2008 financial crisis – Trump threatens trade war with its biggest creditor – China – Bond auctions have seen weak demand due to large supply and trade war concerns – $20 trillion mark reached in early September 2017; $1 trillion added in just 6 months – US total national debt level now exceeds $21.05 trillion and is...

– Eurozone threatened by trade wars, Italy and major political and economic instability – Trade war holds a clear and present danger to stability and economic prospects – Italy represents major source of potential disruption for the currency union – Financial markets fail to reflect the “eurozone time-bomb” in Italy – Financial volatility concerns in Brussels & warning of ‘sharp correction’ on horizon – Euro and...

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is credited with being the first central bank to adopt a formal inflation target. Following last year’s election, the central bank’s mandate has been modified to include full employment. To be sure this was a political decision, and one that initially saw the New Zealand dollar retreat. The dual mandate that originated with the Fed has been questioned in the US, but Congress has shown...

A Word on 1987 Analogies – Why Even Bother? As our friend Dimitri Speck noted in his recent update, the chart pattern of the SPX continues to follow famous crash antecedents quite closely, but obviously not precisely. In particular, the decisive trendline break was rejected for the moment. If the market were to follow the 1987 analog with precision, it would already have crashed this week. Nevertheless, we wanted to...

France’s public deficit fell to 2.6% of GDP in 2017 according to INSEE’s preliminary assessment, down from 3.4% in 2016 and below the 3% threshold for the first time since 2007. The outcome was better than the government’s estimate of a 2.9% deficit. If confirmed, France will exit the Excessive Deficit Procedure that the European Commission opened in 2009. France’s budget balance ended up about EUR10bn above the level...

Central banks are looking beyond the dollar to grow their foreign exchange reserves for the first time in a decade. Rising trade tensions, and a recovering European economy bode well for the euro making a stronger case for central banks to diversify into the monetary union’s currency. Approximately 64% of fx reserves are held in dollars, followed by euros at 20%, and the yen and pound sterling each commanding 4.5%. The...

Tidjane Thiam, CEO of Credit Suisse, as seen in February (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam earned slightly less in 2017 during his third year on the job, the bank said on Friday. The news comes at a time of scrutiny over executive pay and bonuses. Thiam earned CHF9.7 million ($10.26 million) last year, a 5.3% drop on 2016, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank said. “The...

In early March, RT.com, the Russian based media network, asked me for comments and opinion on the subject of central bank manipulation of gold prices. The comments and opinion that I supplied to RT became the article that RT then exclusively published on its website on 18 March under the title “Central banks manipulating & suppressing gold prices – industry expert to RT“. This article is now transcribed below, here...

As for Iraq, the implicit gain was supposed to be access to Iraqi oil. Setting aside the 12 years of "no fly zone" air combat operations above Iraq from 1991 to 2003, the U.S. has been at war for almost 17 years in Afghanistan and 15 years in Iraq. (If the word "war" is too upsetting, then substitute "continuing combat operations".) Since the burdens and costs of these combat operations are borne solely by the...