Tag Archives: Featured

Bogus Jobs Pay Big Bucks The political differences of today’s two leading parties are not over ultimate questions of principle.  Rather, they are over opposing answers to the question of how a goal can be achieved with the least sacrifice.  For lawmakers, the goal is to promise the populace something for nothing, while pretending to make good on it. The short and sweet definition of democratic elections by eminent...

The Federal Reserve is probably looking back at 2017 with satisfaction. After on the rate rise expected on 13 December, it will have pushed through the three rate hikes it signalled earlier in the year. For once, it has not under-delivered. Meanwhile, the gradual, ‘passive’ decline in the Fed’s balance sheet has been mostly ignored by markets. In fact, broader financial conditions have eased this year despite the...

Pressure from taxi companies and fines imposed on drivers have resulted in the retreat of UberPop from Swiss cities (Keystone) - Click to enlarge The ride-sharing firm Uber has announced it will abandon its UberPop service in the city of Basel from June 1, 2018, as it is not profitable enough. UberPop has already been discontinued in Zurich and Lausanne. According to the company, the decision was taken due to...

What if bitcoin is a reflection of trust in the future value of fiat currencies? I am struck by the mainstream confidence that bitcoin is a fraud/fad that will soon collapse, while central bank fiat currencies are presumed to be rock-solid and without risk. Those with supreme confidence in fiat currencies might want to look at a chart of Venezuela’s fiat currency, which has declined from 10 to the US dollar in 2012 to...

It’s been a week of quite righteous focus on collateral. The 4-week bill equivalent yield closes it at just 114 bps, with only three days left before the RRP “floor” is moved up by the FOMC to 125 bps.  That’s too much premium in price, though we know why given what FRBNY reported for repo fails last week.  With all that, there’s really nothing much to say about what’s below. OK, there is, but I’ll save that for next...

As weird as it may seem at first, the primary economic problem right now is that the global economy looks like it is growing again. There is no doubt that it continues on an upturn, but the mere fact that whatever economic statistic has a positive sign in front of it ends up being classified as some variant of strong. That’s how this works in mainstream analysis, this absence of any sort of gradation where if it’s...

An Astonishing Statistic As the final FOMC announcement of the year approaches, we want to briefly return to the topic of how the meeting tends to affect the stock market from a statistical perspective. As long time readers may recall, the typical performance of the stock market in the trading days immediately ahead of FOMC announcements was quite remarkable in recent decades. We are referring to the Seaonax event...

James Grant, Wall Street expert and editor of the renowned investment newsletter «Grant’s Interest Rate Observer», warns of the unseen consequences of super low interest rate and questions the extraordinary actions of the Swiss National Bank. Nearly ten years after the financial crisis, extraordinary monetary policy has become the norm. The financial markets seem to like it: Stocks are close to record levels...

James Grant, Wall Street expert and editor of the renowned investment newsletter «Grant’s Interest Rate Observer», warns of the unseen consequences of super low interest rate and questions the extraordinary actions of the Swiss National Bank. Nearly ten years after the financial crisis, extraordinary monetary policy has become the norm. The financial markets seem to like it: Stocks are close to record levels...

With the approval of the Senate tax bill in the early hours of Saturday 2 December, a key step has been taken toward tax cuts. The next chapter in the process is to reconcile this version with the House of Representatives’ tax bill, most likely in a ‘conference committee ’ from which a final version will emerge. Various lobbies have been taken by surprise by the speed with which tax legislation has moved forward in...