Summary: Mainland demand for HK shares has dried up this month. EMU growth may accelerate in Q4, while the collective deficit continues to fall. German fertility rate increased last year. Here is to the serendipity of learning: 1. Chinese buying of Hong Kong shares has dried up this month compared with the record equivalent of $8 bln in September. So far this month’s purchases are less than $1 bln. In...
Read More »Governments Will Lose Their War on the Markets
Dirty War DELRAY BEACH, Florida – The markets continue to dawdle. Not much conviction in either direction. We’ve already looked at the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. So let’s move on – using our new lens to look at another of the feds’ fake wars. No war was ever officially declared against the markets. But for four decades the feds conducted covert operations – a dirty war in which they’ve...
Read More »The Secrets of Self-Employment: Overhead and Capital Accumulation
There are still opportunities to not just earn a wage, but the overhead, profit and capital skimmed by global corporations. So how can someone earning $15 an hour as an employee get ahead? The short answer is: they can’t. One worker earning $15/hour will struggle to get ahead, which I define as building capital that generates an income stream. A family with four adults working full-time at $15 an hour with benefits can...
Read More »Yuan Not
Summary: The yuan has weakened and Chinese shares have sold off, yet global capital markets are taking little notice. August 2015 and again in January 2016, markets seemed to be hypersensitive. Yuan’s decline has been modest, orderly, and not eliciting a negative response by policymakers, including US Treasury Dept. There were two dogs that did not bark this year. There are the Japanese yen, which despite...
Read More »FX Weekly Preview: Forces of Movement in the Week Ahead
Summary: Fitch cut Italy’s rating outlook to negative from stable, while DBRS left Portugal’s rating and outlook unchanged. Europe and Canada’s free trade negotiations broke down, but many seem to be making exaggerating the significance of the drama. Japan and Australia report inflation figures, and both are exceptions to the generalization that price pressures are rising in (most) high income countries. There...
Read More »L’argent des banques centrales finit dans les paradis fiscaux!
Nous savions que la crise avait laminé les finances des Etats, de l’économie publique et des familles. Jusque là rien de nouveau.Mais en finance, quand quelqu’un perd, il y a en général quelqu’un d’autre qui gagne la même somme et peut-être plus. A moins qu’il ne s’agisse de billets physiques que l’on flambe, c’est comme ça. Nous allons donc nous intéresser aux grands gagnants de la crise financière. S’il y en a...
Read More »Fed GDP Projections
“It is not surprising the Fed once again failed to take action as their expectations for economic growth were once again lowered. In fact, as I have noted previously, the Federal Reserve are the worst economic forecasters on the planet. As shown in the table/chart below, not only are the expectations for economic growth now the lowest on record, the Fed has given up on 2% growth for the economy with the long-run...
Read More »Donald, the “Maestro” and the Politically Controlled Fed
The Crazies Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who was once laudably referred to as “Maestro” for his supposed astute stewardship of U.S. monetary policy, commented last week on the nation’s current political and economic climate: “We’re not in a stable equilibrium. I hope we can all find a way out because this too great a country to be undermined, by how should I say it, crazies.”* Help! The crazies...
Read More »FX Daily, October 20: ECB Unlikely to Shake Dollar’s Slumber
Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, October 20 2016(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ). - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF rates have fallen dramatically over the past month, as Sterling continues to find itself under pressure against the major currencies. However, despite these losses it is not all doom and gloom for those clients holding GBP, as Tuesday’s positive spike for the Pound proved. Currency does not move in a...
Read More »A Looming Banking Crisis – Is a Perfect Storm About to Hit?
Andy Duncan Interviews Claudio Grass Andy Duncan of FinLingo.com has interviewed our friend Claudio Grass, managing director of Global Gold in Switzerland. Below is a transcript excerpting the main parts of the first section of the interview on the problems in the European banking system and what measures might be taken if push were to come to shove. Andy Duncan of FinLingo.com (left) and Claudio Grass of Global...
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