Tag Archives: Featured

The Fed did, as expected, hike rates at their last meeting. And interestingly, interest rates have done nothing but fall since that day. As I predicted in the last BWER, Greenspan’s conundrum is making a comeback. The Fed can do whatever it wants with Fed funds – heck, barely anyone is using it anyway – but they can’t control what the market does with long term rates. At least not without making a commitment like the...

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute, As the immigration debate goes on, many commentators continue to sloppily ignore the difference between the concept of naturalization and the phenomenon of immigration.  While the two are certainly related, they are also certainly not the same thing. Recognizing this distinction can help us to see the very real differences between naturalization, which is a matter...

Swiss Franc Speculators were net short CHF in January 2015, shortly before the end of the peg, with 26.4K contracts. Then again in December 2015, when they expected a Fed rate hike, with 25.5K contracts. The biggest short CHF, however, happened in June 2007, when speculators were net short 80K contracts. Shortly after, the U.S. subprime crisis started. The carry trade against CHF collapsed. The...

(ll) – Die Schweizerische Nationalbank (SNB) hat am Donnerstag ihren Geschäftsbericht publiziert und musste erneut heftige Kritik vor der Schweizer Unabhängigkeitspartei up! einstecken. up! kritisiert insbesondere die expansive Geldpolitik, die zu Fremdwährungsreserven von 692 Milliarden Franken geführt hat. Zudem fordert up! einen Übergang von der staatlichen Währung zu einem System von Marktwährungen. Die SNB hat in...

Gold and silver jumped another 1% overnight in Asia, building on the respective 1.5% and 2.2% gains seen last week. The ‘Trump trade’ is fading, impacting stock markets and risk off has returned to global markets with the Nikkei, S&P 500 futures and European stocks weakening. The precious metals had their second consecutive week of gains last week. Gold rose 1.5% and silver 2% while platinum rose 0.5% and palladium...

It’s time to start planning for what we’ll do when the current healthcare system implodes. As with many other complex, opaque systems in the U.S., only those toiling in the murky depths of the healthcare system know just how broken the entire system is. Only those dealing daily with the perverse incentives, the Kafkaesque procedures, the endlessly negative unintended consequences, the soul-deadening paper-shuffling, the...

United States The first quarter winds down. The dollar moved lower against all the major currencies.  The best performer in the first three months of the year has been the Australian dollar’s whose 5.8% rally includes last week’s 1% drop.  The worst performing major currency has been the Canadian dollar.  It often underperforms in a weak US dollar environment.  It’s almost 0.5.% gain is less than half the appreciation...

Stock Markets EM FX ended the week on a firm note. Indeed, virtually all of EM was up against the dollar last week, led by ZAR and MXN. BRL and PHP were the laggards. It remains to be seen how markets react to the failure to pass the health care reform in the US. Will Trump move on the tax reform? Can the Republicans proceed with its agenda in light of the fissures within the party? Stock Markets Emerging Markets,...

  Swiss Franc Currency Index In the last week, the Swiss Franc index recovered and gained about 2%. The dollar index lost 1.5%, Trade-weighted index Swiss Franc, March 25(see more posts on Swiss Franc Index, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge Swiss Franc Currency Index (3 years) The Swiss Franc index is the trade-weighted currency performance (see the currency basket)On a three years interval, the...

This is why the Deep State is fracturing: its narratives no longer align with the evidence. As this chart from Google Trends illustrates, interest in the Deep State has increased dramatically in 2017. The term/topic has clearly moved from the specialist realm to the mainstream. I’ve been writing about the Deep State, and specifically, the fractures in the Deep State, for years. [embedded content] Amusingly, now that...