See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. The Lighthouse Moves Picture, if you will, a brick slowly falling off a cliff. The brick is printed with green ink, and engraved on it are the words “Federal Reserve Note” (FRN). A camera is mounted to the brick. The camera shows lots of things moving up. The cliff face is whizzing upwards at a blur. A black painted brick...
Read More »FX Daily, April 11: Mr Market Waits for Other Shoe to Drop
Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.20% to 1.1846 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, April 11(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Between Syria, trade tensions, and the US special investigator into Russia’s attempt to influence the US election, market participants are cautious as they wait for another shoe to drop. The US equity market recovery yesterday has short...
Read More »FX Daily, March 13: Non-Economic Developments Dominate Ahead of US CPI
Swiss Franc The Euro stood still at 1.1684 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, March 13(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Many see the eruption of the scandal that threatens senior government officials as yen positive because it weakens those that ostensibly want to depreciate the yen through monetary policy. The scandal involves falsifying documents to conceal a...
Read More »FX Daily, February 14: Investors Remain Uneasy even as Equities Stabilize
Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.08% to 1.1533 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, February 14(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates There is an unease that continues to hang over the market. It is as if a shoe fell last week, and most investors seem to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. It is hard to imagine the kind of body blow that the equities took last week...
Read More »Good or Bad, But Surely Not Transitory
When Federal Reserve officials first started last year to mention wireless network data plans as a possible explanation for a fifth year of “transitory” factors holding back consumer price inflation, it seemed a bit transparent. One of the reasons for immediately doubting their sincerity was the history of that particular piece of the CPI (or PCE Deflator). To begin with, the unlimited data plan wars that kicked off...
Read More »FX Daily, January 12: Euro Jumps Higher
Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.45% to 1.1735 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 12(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates There is one main story today and it is the euro’s surge. The euro began the week consolidating it recent gains a heavier bias, but the record of last month’s ECB meeting surprised the market with its seeming willingness to change the...
Read More »FX Daily, December 13: Greenback Quiet Ahead of Five Central Bank Meetings
Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.06% to 1.1633 CHF. EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 13(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge GBP / CHF Since the end of August the pound has been making inroads against the Swiss Franc and recovering from the dramatic drop in exchange rates since the Brexit vote over 18 months ago. GBPCHF has gained 8 cents in 4 months. To put this into...
Read More »Geopolitical Risk Highest “In Four Decades” – Gold Demand in Germany and Globally to Remain Robust
– Geopolitical risk highest “in four decades” should push gold higher – Citi – Elections, political and macroeconomic crises and war lead to gold investment – Political uncertainty in Germany means “gold likely to remain in good demand as a safe haven” say Commerzbank– “There has rarely been such political uncertainty in Germany at any time in the country’s post-war history” – Commerzbank – Reduce counter party risk:...
Read More »How Uncle Sam Inflates Away Your Life
Economic Nirvana “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” economist and Nobel Prize recipient Milton Friedman once remarked. He likely meant that inflation is the more rapid increase in the supply of money relative to the output of goods and services which money is traded for. Photo via mises.ca - Click to enlarge Famous Monetarist School representative Milton Friedman thought the US should adopt...
Read More »Business Cycles and Inflation, Part II
Early Warning Signals in a Fragile System [ed note: here is Part 1; if you have missed it, best go there and start reading from the beginning] We recently received the following charts via email with a query whether they should worry stock market investors. They show two short term interest rates, namely the 2-year t-note yield and 3 month t-bill discount rate. Evidently the moves in short term rates over the past ~18...
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