Tag Archives: Featured

Overview: Chinese officials using the carrot and the stick have succeeded in dampening the protests and easing some anxiety and rekindled the animal spirits. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rallied 5.25% and its index of mainland shares surged 6.20%. South Korea and Taiwan indices gained more than 1%. Among the large bourses, only Japan failed to advance. Softer than expected Spanish and German inflation may also be helping the Stoxx 600 recoup around half of yesterday’s...

© Beriliu | Dreamstime.com Close to half of renters is Switzerland could face significant increases in rent, estimates Zürich Kantonalbank (ZKB), with rents potentially rising as much as 15% over the next five years, reported the newspaper Blick. The reference mortgage rate used to set rents, which was has been 1.25% since March 2020 could rise as high as 2.5% between now and 2027, said the bank in a recently published real estate report. This means that any leases...

It’s not just the price of oil that matters: how much disposable income consumers have left to buy more goods and services matters, too. The Oil Curse (a.k.a. The Resource Curse) refers to the compelling ease of those blessed with an abundance of oil/resources to depend on that gift for the majority of state/national revenues. The risks and demands of developing a diverse, globally competitive economy don’t seem worth the effort when the single-source wealth of oil...

When we think about the challenges facing an investor today, the big problems, the things we worry about that could cause a lot more harm than some interest rate hikes, are mostly outside the United States. China is prominent this weekend because of demonstrations against their zero COVID policies. The Chinese people appear to be pretty well fed up with the endless lockdowns and have finally decided to try and do something about it. Unfortunately, I’m not sure...

Overview: The surging Covid cases in China and the protests in several cities seemed to set the tone for today’s session. Equities are lower. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea were marked down the most. Of the large bourses, only India escaped unscathed. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is off more than 0.8% and US futures are poised to gap lower. Bond markets are quieter. The 10-year US Treasury yield is off a little more than one basis point to around 3.66%. European...

Crypto comparison website Bitstacker conducted a study which found that there was a 70% drop in Bitcoin millionaires in November 2022 when compared to January 2022 due to the ongoing ‘crypto winter’. 72,000 Bitcoin holders were no longer millionaires due to the drop in BTC prices from US$46,208 at the start of 2022 to US$15,759 at the time of the study in November. Bitstacker also found that there was some 3,577 accounts holding over US$10 million in Bitcoin, while...

Few seem alive to the potentially consequential financial risks arising from uncertainties evolving in China. One thing we know rather definitively is that markets don’t like uncertainty: uncertainty is Kryptonite to markets. Another thing we know is that the events unfolding in China are generating uncertainty on multiple levels.Whatever policy decisions are made, the potential consequences generate waves of profound uncertainty. Should authorities respond to...

The head of Credit Suisse’s Swiss division says that only a few clients are actually closing accounts at the bank. His comments after the troubled bank reported high customer fund withdrawals globally. “Some clients have withdrawn part of their funds, but only very few have actually closed their accounts,”  the CEO of Credit Suisse’s Swiss unit, André Helfenstein, said in an interview published in the SonntagsZeitung and Le Matin Dimanche. “We have only lost...

As of 2022 the national student debt reached $1.6 trillion with the average student loan debt at about $28,000. Many former college students are discovering it is difficult to pay back such a large amount of debt. This is especially true of students that graduate with fruitless degrees like sociology, for example. These majors are only good as prerequisites to a master’s degree. Most graduates find themselves working jobs that are completely unrelated to their...

We think the US dollar has put in a significant high. However, the near-term technical readings are stretched. The dollar's bounce from November 15 to November 21 met or approached minimum retracement targets, but the momentum indicators did not correct. These conflicting impulses need to be navigated in the days ahead. On balance, we look for a firmer greenback, which we see as corrective. That is the prism through which we look at the price action. At the same...