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– Safe haven silver to outperform gold in Q4 and 2018 – “Expect silver to eventually outperform gold” say Metals Focus– 2017 YTD, silver has underperformed gold, climbing by 5% versus 11%– Silver undervalued versus gold and especially stocks, bonds and many property markets– Will follow gold’s reactions to macroeconomic & geopolitical factors and should outperform gold– Special report on India shows it accounts for...

Japan is a global leader is how to gracefully manage stagnation. Although our leadership is too polite to say it out loud, they’ve embraced stagnation as the new quasi-official policy. The reason is tragi-comically obvious: any real reform would threaten the income streams gushing into untouchably powerful self-serving elites and fiefdoms. In our pay-to-play centralized form of governance, any reform that threatens the...

There is nothing inevitable about such vast, fast-rising income-wealth inequality; it is the only possible output of our financial and pay-to-play political system. One chart defines the 21st century economy and thus its socio-political system: the chart of soaring wealth/income inequality. This chart doesn’t show a modest widening in the gap between the super-wealthy (top 1/10th of 1%) and everyone else: there is a...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Fat-Boy Waves The prices of the metals dropped $17 and $0.35, and the gold-silver ratio rose to 77.  A look at the chart of either metal shows that a downtrend in prices (i.e. uptrend in the dollar) that began in mid-April reversed in mid-July. Then the prices began rising (i.e. dollar began falling). But that move ended...

We agree with the consensus that the markets are in a transition phase. The consensus sees this transition phase as a new economic convergence. European and Japanese economic growth continues above trend. Large emerging markets, including BRICs, are also expanding. Central banks are gradually moving away from the extreme accommodation. We recognize the robust economic growth, but we do not see this economic convergence...

Stock Markets EM FX firmed Friday, but capped off a bad week overall. US jobs data this Friday is unlikely to provide much clarity on Fed policy, though we think it remains on track to hike again in December. The Fed’s balance sheet reduction will start this month. We remain negative on EM, and believe selling pressures are likely to persist in Q4. Stock Markets Emerging Markets, October 02 Source: economist.com -...

This Great Graphic was composed on Bloomberg. It shows the recent price action of the Dollar Index. There seems to be a head and shoulders bottoming pattern that has been traced out over the last few weeks. The right shoulder was carved last week, and today, the Dollar Index is pushing through the neckline, which is found by connecting the bounces after the shoulders were formed. One of the important contributions of...

In ancient times, like as far back as the 1990s, housing prices grew roughly inline with inflation rates because they were generally set by supply and demand forces determined by a market where buyers mostly just bought houses so they could live in them. Back in those ancient days, a more practical group of world citizens saw their homes as a place to raise a family rather that just another asset class that should be...

© Ognjen Stevanovic | Dreamstime Yesterday, the Swiss government released health insurance premiums for 2018. There are price hikes across the board, particularly in French-speaking Switzerland. Next year, the price of standard compulsory insurance for an adult with a CHF 300 deductible will rise 4% on average. The cost varies by canton. Prices rises range from 1.6% to 6.4%. Health premiums for children will rise by...

China’s Communist Party concluded the Third Plenum of its 18th Congress in November 2013. It was the much-discussed reform mandate that many in the West took to mean another positive step toward neo-liberal reform. At its center was supposed to be a greater role for markets particularly in the central task of resource allocation. In some places, the Party’s General Secretary Xi Jinping was hailed as the great Chinese...