Tag Archives: Featured

Your skills, knowledge and and social capital will emerge unscathed on the other side of the re-set wormhole. Your financial assets held in centrally controlled institutions will not. Longtime correspondent C.A. recently asked a question every American household should be asking: which assets are most likely to survive the “system re-set” that is now inevitable? It’s a question of great import because not all assets...

Headlines Week February 06, 2017 Recently inflation rose more quickly in the euro zone, but this was mostly caused by a temporary oil price effect. Therefore the ECB might be dovish for a longer period than the SNB. Consumer price inflation will decide who is more dovish. Ultimately inflation will depend on the two key parameters wages and rents. Rents will rise first in Switzerland, while the Euro zone has downwards...

Summary: The Fed is more confident this year of stable growth and rising inflation. The new US Administration’s economic agenda is beginning to take shape, though it is not clear that consumer interests will be pursued. There are several considerations, including politics in Europe, that are driving European rates higher. The RBA and RBNZ meet next week. Neither is expected to change policy. United States The...

Stock Markets EM ended the week on a firm note, with markets digesting what they perceived as a dovish Fed bias.  We disagree, and continue to believe that markets are underestimating the Fed’s capacity to tighten this year. EM FX could continue gaining some traction if the dollar correction continues, but we think US interest rates will ultimately move higher and put pressure on EM once again. Stock Markets Emerging...

Rather than be seen to be further enriching the rich, I think central banks will start closing the “free money for financiers” spigots. Take a quick glance at these charts of the Federal Reserve balance sheet and bank credit in the U.S. Notice what happened to bank credit after the Fed “tapered” and stopped expanding its balance sheet? U.S. Fed Summary - Click to enlarge Bank credit exploded higher: U.S. Bank...

Popular Narrative India has been the world’s favorite country for the last three years. It is believed to have superseded China as the world’s fastest growing large economy. India is expected to grow at 7.5%. Compare that to the mere 6.3% growth that China has “fallen” to. The IMF, the World Bank, and the international media have celebrated this event. Declining commodity prices and other problems in Russia, Brazil and...

  Swiss Franc Currency Index The Swiss Franc index remained around the 2% gain that for the last month, the recovery from the Trump reflation trade. In this trade, investors preferred U.S. against European stocks. This tendency, however, is reversing now – and with it the franc recovered. Trade-weighted index Swiss Franc, February 04(see more posts on Swiss Franc Index, ) Source: market.ft.com - Click to...

Awesome Forecasts and the Unknowable Future Back in late 2013 I wrote a piece on human nature which was in part inspired by the bullish exuberance exhibited by a MarketWatch article predicting the DJIA at 20,000 in the near term future. Yesterday afternoon, a bit over three years later, that prediction actually became reality and I’m sure the author of that article as well as many other like minded traders popped some...

The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” story is based on a long list of misunderstandings and apples to oranges comparisons. Somehow, people seem to believe that our economy of 7.5 billion people can get along with a very short list of energy supplies. This short list will not include fossil fuels. Some would exclude nuclear, as well. Without these energy types, we find ourselves with a short list of types of energy — what...

Submitted by Judith Bergmann via The Gatestone Institute, Swiss authorities are currently investigating 480 suspected jihadists in the country. “Radical imams always preached in the An-Nur Mosque… Those responsible are fanatics. It is no coincidence that so many young people from Winterthur wanted to do jihad.” — Saïda Keller-Messahli, president of Forum for a Progressive Islam. Switzerland is the answer to those who...