Tag Archives: Featured

Political tensions on the Korean peninsula are rising The IMF cut its growth forecasts for South Africa Brazil announced its 2017 budget target In the EM equity space as measured by MSCI, Hungary (+3.0%), UAE (+2.0%), and Qatar (+0.7%) have outperformed this week, while Mexico (-3.4%), South Africa (-2.1%), and Colombia (-1.7%) have underperformed.  To put this in better context, MSCI EM fell -1.2% this week while...

Netherlands 10Y Yield For the first time in Dutch history, 10Y government bond yields have turned negative (-0.001% intraday) closing at 0.00%… Click to enlarge. Joining Switzerland, Japan, Germany, and Denmark… Pushing Global NIRP bonds over the $13 trillion! Click to enlarge. Chart: Bloomberg

There is something for everyone in today’s US jobs report, and at the end of the day, it is unlikely to sway opinion about the direction and timing of the next Fed move. The greenback itself may remain range bound after the initial flurry. On the other hand, the disappointing but noisy Canadian data underscores the risk of a more dovish slant to the central bank’s neutral stance next week. United States Nonfarm...

Japan has pushed further away from being the nation that embraces “Krugman Era” economics and deeper into the new “Bernanke Era” economics of helicopter money.  As a result Japan’s citizens have been on a blitz to save what little purchasing power they still possess, before hyperinflation finally arrives. The gold price is up double digits in the past month and as we said last night, something big is coming as Japan...

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Chinese wholesale gold demand, as measured by withdrawals from the vaults of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), reached a sizable 973 metric tonnes in the first half of 2016, down 7 % compared to last year. Although Chinese gold demand year to date at 973 tonnes is slightly down from its record year in 2015 – when China in total net imported over 1,550 tonnes and an astonishing 2,596 tonnes were withdrawn from SGE...

  A Morally and Economically Superior Monetary System It has been theoretically demonstrated and seen in general practice that a monetary system of 100% metallic money devoid of central banking checks monetary inflation, prevents a general rise in the price level, and eliminates the dreaded business cycle while making all sorts of monetary mischief nearly impossible. A gold standard is not only economically superior...

Summary Italian banks have done worse that European banks. Italian banks outperformed Germany banks from end of H1 12 through H1 15. US banks and financials more broadly have outperformed Europe. Italian banks were struggling before the UK referendum.  The result drove down interest rate, which keeps margins under pressure. The prospects of weaker growth as a result of Brexit means that demand for credit...

  Landfall of a “Told You So” Moment… Late last year and early this year, we wrote extensively about the problems we thought were coming down the pike for European banks. Very little attention was paid to the topic at the time, but we felt it was a typical example of a “gray swan” – a problem everybody knows about on some level, but naively thinks won’t erupt if only it is studiously ignored. This actually worked for a...

Swiss Franc Click to enlarge. Brexit Amid a better if not strong risk appetite, sterling has rallied two cents from yesterday’s lows near $1.28 to poke through the $1.30 level in the European morning. Click to enlarge. United Kingdom It was helped by an industrial production report that was better than expected. Industrial and manufacturing output fell 0.5% in May. This was around half of the expected decline...