Tag Archives: newsletter

The week ahead features the ECB meeting and the US February jobs report. The Reserve Bank of Australia meets, Europe reports industrial production, Japan reports January current account figures, and China reports its latest inflation and lending figures. We frame this week’s discussion of the drivers in terms of four sets of questions and offer some tentative answers. United States What is the significance of the...

Stock Markets EM FX was mostly softer last week, though it ended the week firmer, buoyed by outsized MXN gains Friday.  The Fed is sending very strong signals for a March hike, which should keep EM FX on its back foot.  However, with the March 15 FOMC embargo coming into effect, there will be no Fed speakers after Kashkari on Monday.  Jobs data on Friday will be the highlight, but given the Fed’s signals, we do not...

© Lianna2013 | Dreamstime.com One year after Switzerland’s Council of States (upper house) voted in favour of controlling lobbyists’ access to parliament, the draft proposed implementation plan has been rejected by the commission in charge of it. Back in March 2016, the Council of States voted in favour of a parliamentary initiative put forward by state councillor Didier Berberat calling for those accessing parliament...

Summary: Populism-nationalism is not really a wave sweeping across the world. Where it succeeded was where a center-right party in a two-party system embraced part of the populist agenda. Center-right parties in Europe are not embracing key agenda for populist-naitonalist, but appear to be tacking to the right on domestic issues. The conventional narrative is that in the aftermath of the Great Financial...

  Why gold retains value? Interesting unknown gold facts “Prepare your jaws for a sizeable drop!” History, finite, rare and peak gold “It is beautiful to look at…” ‘Heavy metal’ – Thud sound of a gold bar (kilo) ‘Going for gold’ – Olympic gold medals to Chelthenham ‘Gold Cup’ Peak gold … “Hard work to get gold out of the ground…” How much an Oscar is actually worth? Importance of hiding gold creatively and securely if...

Germany is notoriously fickle when it comes to money, speaking as much of discipline in economy or industry as central banking. If ever there is disagreement about monetary arrangements, surely the Germans are behind it. Since ECB policy only ever attains the one direction, so-called accommodation, there never seems to be harmony. But that may only be true because “accommodation” doesn’t ever achieve what it aims to....

Summary A Korean special prosecutor indicted Samsung chief Jay Y. Lee on bribery charges. Korean press is reporting that China has told its travel agents to halt sales of holiday packages to South Korea. Bulgaria’s interim government said it may apply to join the eurozone within a month. South Africa’s main labor union Cosatu accepted a government-proposed minimum wage. New Commerce Secretary Ross appears to be taking...

There is gold in Asia, at least gold of the intellectual variety for anyone who wishes to see it. The Chinese offer us perhaps the purest view of monetary conditions globally, where RMB money markets are by design tied directly to “dollar” behavior. It is, in my view, enormously helpful to obsess over China’s monetary system so as to be able to infer a great deal about the global monetary system deep down beyond the...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, February 28(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF GBH CHF continues to see a volatile period with the general global uncertainty which has seen investors favour the safe haven currency. GBP CHF currently sits at 1.25 for this pair and there is resistance at these levels which is preventing the pound from driving higher. Brexit is now...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Gold Scarcity Intensifies Further Last week (a holiday-shortened week, as Monday was President’s Day in the US), the price of the dollar fell. In gold, it fell almost half a milligram to 24.75mg, and prices in silver it dropped 30mg, to 1.7 grams of the white monetary metal. Looks good… and since last week, costs...