Tag Archives: Featured

According to a recent report by the bank Credit Suisse, the Swiss are worth more on average than the residents of any other nation. The bank’s annual Global Wealth Report calculates average net worth per Swiss adult to be US$ 561,900 (CHF 567,500). Switzerland’s combined personal wealth of US$ 3.5 trillion represents 1.4% of the global total, while the nation’s population represents 0.1% of the global total. ©...

Gross Regulatory Overburden Corporate life in America these days is fraught with tedium.  First the MBAs imposed their silly six sigma processes and reduced workers to mere widgets. Then the regulators went through and squashed out any fun that remained. Gone are the days when shrewd eccentrics could get rich using techno-babble to hawk the Turbo Encabulator.  Alas, there are rules and regulations stymieing all...

BMO Nesbitt Burns - Click to enlarge Despite speculation over the past year that Canada may join Japan and Europe in the NIRP club and launch negative interest rates, so far the BOC has stood its ground. However, starting on December 22, for the broker dealer clients of one of Canada’s most reputable financial institutions, BMO Nesbitt Burns, it will be as if the Canadian bank has cut its deposit rate on most...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. The Quality of Money “The problem with central banks is that they increase the quantity of money in the same way that the problem with piping sewage into a swimming pool increases the quantity of water.” It’s not really about the quantity, is it? It’s about the quality. We believe that millions of people can see that...

Remember when bashing central banks and predicting financial collapse as a result of monetary manipulation and intervention was considered “fake news” within the “serious” financial community, disseminated by fringe blogs? Good times. In an interview with Swiss Sonntags Blick titled appropriately enough “A Recession Is Sometimes Necessary“, the former CEO of UBS and Credit Suisse, Oswald Grübel, lashed out by...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, November 21(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ). - Click to enlarge FX Rates The euro is trying to snap a ten-day losing streak.  Its bounce today has stopped a little shy of the five-day moving average that is found near $1.0650.  It has not traded above this short-term moving average since the November 9. FX Performance, November 21 2016 Movers and Shakers. Source: Dukascopy...

Summary: Perceptions of two trends shape the investment climate: reflation and nationalism. Fed rate hike set for next month, barring significant surprise. Japan’s trade surplus is growing even as imports and exports continue to contract. United States Around the middle of the year, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard revealed his new economic approach. He argued that during economic phases, or...

In this war of the rising and fading elites, there is no common ground or incentive to compromise. Historian Michael Grant identified profound political disunity in the ruling elite as a key cause of the dissolution of the Roman Empire. Grant described this dynamic in his excellent account The Fall of the Roman Empire. The chapter titles of the book illuminate the complex causes of profound political disunity in the...

Summary EM FX ended the week on a soft note, as higher US rates continue to take a toll. EM policymakers are getting more concerned about currency weakness, with Brazil, Malaysia, Korea, India, and Indonesia all taking action to help support their currencies. If the EM sell-off continues as we expect, more EM central banks are likely to act to slow the moves. Several EM central banks (Hungary, Malaysia, South Africa,...

Over the past few years, one of the recurring themes on this website has been an ongoing discussion of how the VIX has lost its predictive value as a market risk indicator. This culminated recently with a note by Russel Clark who explained in clear term why the “VIX is now broken.” Today, in a fascinating note Hyun Song Shin, head of research at the Bank for International Settlements, the “central banks’ central bank”...