Tag Archives: newsletter

Swiss National Bank, © Swisshippo | Dreamstime.com Anyone feeling let down that the European Central Bank didn’t do much last week might just want to skip the Swiss rate decision on Thursday to avoid more disappointment. While the Swiss National Bank may be infamous for some seismic policy changes in the last few years, those bombshells weren’t dropped at scheduled meetings. In fact, the last time the institution...

Summary: Global interest rates are rising. Something important is happening. It appears to be dollar positive. Price is Right – click to enlarge. The market has not changed its mind. Following Brainard’s comments yesterday the market had downgraded the chances, which were already modest, of a Fed hike next week.  The September Fed funds futures is unchanged on the day.  The implied yield of 41 bp matches the...

While the view might be great from the top of the wealth/income pyramid, it takes a special kind of self-serving myopia to ignore the reality that the bottom 95% are not doing so well. We’re ceaselessly told/sold that the U.S. economy is doing phenomenally well in our current slow-growth world — generating record corporate profits, record highs in the S&P 500 stock index, and historically low unemployment (4.9% in...

Summary: Global bonds and global stocks ended last week on a weak note and this will likely carry into this week’s activity. The Bank of England meets, but the data may be more important. Oil and commodity prices more generally look vulnerable, and this coupled with higher yields sapped the Australian ad Canadian dollar in the second half of last week. The week ahead will likely be shaped by a combination of...

Submitted by Michael Shedlock via KMichTalk.com, Looking for group think, extrapolation of extreme silliness, linear thinking, and belief in absurd models? Then look no further than Fed presidents, their advisors, and academia loaded charlatan professors. Today’s spotlight is on Marvin Goodfriend, a former economist and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve’s Bank of Richmond, and Ken Rogoff, a chaired Harvard...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]In the last two days, the euro moved upwards against CHF. Given that Swiss GDP was stronger than the one in the euro zone, this is surprising. But we must recognize that Draghi could be the reason. Inflation forecasts of 1.2% in 2017 and 1.8% in the euro zone would mean the ECB hikes rates maybe in 2018 or 2019. I personally do not believe it, given that wage inflation in Italy or Spain is clearly under 1%. This is lower than Swiss wage inflation of 0.8%.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Now that the U.S. is a neoliberal selfie society, we have the worst of all possible worlds in terms of a failed, doomed democracy. Each individual's liberty to do whatever you want, be whatever you want, go wherever you want, etc. (within the legal boundaries set by the state) is the core of the American Dream. The individual's civil liberties and right to the unlimited pursuit of happiness is sacrosanct.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]An Abrupt Drop. Let’s turn back to our regular beat: the U.S. economy and its capital markets. We’ve been warning that the Fed would never make any substantial increase to interest rates. Not willingly, at least. Each time Fed chief Janet Yellen opens her mouth, out comes a hint that more rate hikes might be coming.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Head Fake Theory Confirmed? This is a brief update on our last overview of economic data. Although we briefly discussed employment as well, the overview was as usual mainly focused on manufacturing, which is the largest sector of the economy by gross output.

  Quarterly meeting of the Incrementum Fund The quarterly meeting of the Incrementum Fund’s advisory board was held on July 19. A pdf transcript of the discussion can be downloaded via the link below. We were once again joined by special guest Brent Johnson, the CEO of Santiago Capital. When Will the Helicopter Take Off? This time the debate revolved around the threat of “helicopter money”, which has become a lot...