Tag Archives: Financial crisis

Overview: The dramatic shift in expectations for Fed policy is a potent shock, with reverberations throughout the capital markets.  The business press was full of accounts putting the nearly 50 bp decline in the US two-year note in an historical perspective. Yesterday, it fell by 61 bp as the market continued to unwind Fed hikes and reprice the chances of a cut as early as Q2. While the poorly received bill auctions suggests not significant deposit flight, the KBW...

In our July 29 post titled How Gold Stacks Up Against Stocks, Property, Commodities and Big Macs! we showed readers charts of gold as a ratio to other assets and products. We discussed that gold competes with crypto and stocks for the investment dollars. It was clear that gold as a ratio of the S&P 500 Index and of the broader MCSI World Equity Index show that gold is ‘relatively cheap’ compared to these measures. But then we showed that this wasn’t the...

Central banks’ massive Quantitative Easing (QE) programs have come under scrutiny many times since the central banks fired up the printing press and began quantitative easing programs en masse after the 2008-09 Great Financial Crisis. However, the increase in central bank assets due to quantitative easing programs during the crisis pale in comparison to the QE programs during the Covid pandemic. As economies recovered after the Great Financial Crisis many worried...

“Trust the state. Do what they say. They’ve never lied to us before, have they?” – Daniel McAdams, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Central bankers are washing their hands too Looking at the carnage that stock markets have suffered, it’s not surprising to see central banks jumping in to save the day. It’s even less surprising to see them all deploy the very same remedies that have long stopped working, only in astronomically higher doses. Of course, rate cutting and...

Over the last few months, gold’s performance has been remarkable. Many market observers and mainstream analysts have pointed to various geopolitical developments in their efforts to explain away the bullishness as a reaction to whatever happens to be in the headlines at the time. The Trump impeachment, the US-China trade war, more recently the tensions with Iran, are all among the reasons that have been put forward so far to justify the current gold rush. And yet, while all these...

Over the last few months, gold’s performance has been remarkable. Many market observers and mainstream analysts have pointed to various geopolitical developments in their efforts to explain away the bullishness as a reaction to whatever happens to be in the headlines at the time. The Trump impeachment, the US-China trade war, more recently the tensions with Iran, are all among the reasons that have been put forward so far to justify the current gold rush. And yet,...

Economists, conservative investors and market observers have been issuing stern warnings for years regarding the severe impact of the current monetary policy direction. The problems In a recent statement, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos warned of potential side effects and risks to the economy resulting directly from the central bank’s policies. He outlined how a decade of extremely aggressive monetary interventions have resulted in an erosion of financial...

Economists, conservative investors and market observers have been issuing stern warnings for years regarding the severe impact of the current monetary policy direction. The problems In a recent statement, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos warned of potential side effects and risks to the economy resulting directly from the central bank’s policies. He outlined how a decade of extremely aggressive monetary interventions have resulted in an erosion of financial stability and now...

We’ve recently seen a lot of coverage and even more “expert analyses” on the state of the bond market, to the extent that the average investor, or the average citizen for that matter, is likely to be overwhelmed and very confused about what it all means. Experts from the institutional side and defenders of the current monetary direction argue that it is all the result of policy choices, that’s it’s all under control and that we really shouldn’t worry about the...

We’ve recently seen a lot of coverage and even more “expert analyses” on the state of the bond market, to the extent that the average investor, or the average citizen for that matter, is likely to be overwhelmed and very confused about what it all means. Experts from the institutional side and defenders of the current monetary direction argue that it is all the result of policy choices, that’s it’s all under control and that we really shouldn’t worry about the extreme phenomena and...