Tag Archives: Financial crisis of 2007–2008

Overnight, the Swiss National Bank disclosed the composition and breakdown of its FX reserves as of June 30. There were no notable changes, as the central bank kept most of its asset allocations unchanged from the previous quarter, with equities, government bonds and "other bonds", at 20%, 68% and 12% respectively. There were also no shifts in the currency composition as shown in the table below. There was one notable - and unexpected - development, and it had to do with the SNB's -0.75%...

 Two weeks ago Bank of America caused a stir when it calculated that central banks (mostly the ECB & BoJ) have bought $1 trillion of financial assets just in the first four months of 2017, which amounts to $3.6 trillion annualized, “the largest CB buying on record.”  Aggregate Balance Sheet Of Large Central Banks, 2000 - 2017 - Click to enlarge BofA’s Michael Hartnett noted that supersized central bank...

The Market Has its Head Buried Deep In The Sand Several “black swans” are looming which could inflict a financial nuclear accident on the U.S. markets and financial system. I say “black swans” in quotes because a limited audience is aware of these issues – potentially catastrophic problems that are curiously ignored by the mainstream financial media and financial markets. The most immediate problem is the Treasury...

By EconMatters In this Video, we discuss the fact that Central Banks have basically morphed into Hedge Funds with similar risky investing strategies, except they buy without any regard to the underlying fundamentals of the assets they are buying. When did the Swiss Citizens say it was the proper role for the Swiss National Bank to be buying US Stocks? How is this stimulating the Swiss Economy? Central Banks have really...

By EconMatters We discuss the manner in which Central Banks have destroyed financial markets, and have the stage for what I label as the Red Swan Event in this video. When the Swiss National Bank holds risky Tech stocks in its portfolio, we are in unchartered territory! We had the Financial Crisis of 2008, and instead of learning from the mistakes of incentivizing excessive risk taking, the Central Banks were allowed to...

Regular readers remember how, when we first reported around the time of our launch eight years ago that central banks buy stocks, intervene and prop up markets, and generally manipulate equities in order to maintain confidence in a collapsing system, and avoid a liquidation panic and bank runs, it was branded “fake news” by the established financial “kommentariat.” What a difference eight years makes, because today none...

As tumultuous as last year was from a global political perspective on the back of a rocky start market-wise, 2017 will be much more so. The central bank subsidization of the financial system (especially in the US and Europe) that began with the Fed invoking zero interest rate policy in 2008, gave way to international distrust of the enabling status quo that unfolded in different ways across the planet. My prognosis is...

Today Credit Suisse released its latest annual global wealth report, which traditionally lays out what is perhaps the biggest reason for the recent “anti-establishment” revulsion: an unprecedented concentration of wealth among a handful of people, as shown in its infamous global wealth pyramid, an arrangement which as observed by the “shocking” political backlash of the past few months suggests that the lower ‘levels’...

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...

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 criticizing the growing strength of central banks and their ‘supremacy over the...