Category Archives: Draghi

China Banking: Pigs Might Fly

by CantillonCH

There must be something in the air this winter – something that is besides the whiff of climate cant and manufactured eco-hysteria emanating from Davos and all the other organs of bien pensanterie. For, everywhere you look, someone is going less than quietly insane, either cooking up or Swedish chef rehashing glaring errors of economic idiocy or sweet-shop window socialism. Bork, bork, bork!

[This article can be heard as a podcast on Soundcloud under ‘CantillonCH‘ or iTunes under ‘Cantillon Effects‘] Continue reading …

Central Banking: It’s alive!!

by CantillonCH

In his recent posting on Linked In, entitled, ‘The death of macro-prudential’, Stuart Trow of the EBRD delivered a well-aimed broadside at the pitiable conduct of the Bank of England and elaborated on some of the malign consequences of its catalogue of errors. Without wishing to single him out unduly for criticism for a piece with whose broad outlines I concur,  I see it as a prime example of where even those who are not wholly in thrall to the cult of ‘Whatever it Takes’ often miss the critical features of that cult’s essential evil. Continue reading …

How the VIX Seller Lost his Shirt (updated)

by CantillonCH

Previously featured by the good folk at Real Vision, my look at how the narrative we construct around the events of the market is all important in determining how we react to it and, hence, what further ramifications these might involve.

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The Mephisto Polka

by CantillonCH

[This article appeared in edited form in the Epoch Times and also in the Daily Telegraph]

In her recent set-piece testimony before Congress, Janet Yellen made clear that she is determined to repeat the sort of ‘gradualism’ in raising rates that proved so disastrous after the Tech bust. In other words, that she will not so much boil the frog slowly as encourage him to go out and make a further raft of foredoomed, highly-leveraged investment decisions before he realises he’s been cooked.

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Patience, Bund bears! Patience!

by CantillonCH

No, Mario is NOT about to give up – whatever! China monetary trends might mean the industrial earnings cycle has peaked. US debt levels are still OK, but the low cost is promoting slightly worrisome growth – nor are Tech balance sheets entirely without blemish. Commodities – clueless and friendless.

Please click for the latest Monitor

17-06-28 M4 No 6

 

Cracks in the Facade: Monitor update

by CantillonCH

The new M4 is here.

Tech tremors, Musk magic and a rich US equity market. Ex-energy to give it some gas? The pounded sterling and taking aim at the TARGET. Latest thoughts to be had by clicking on the link.

17-06-13 M4 No 4

Mario’s Squeezy-B

by CantillonCH

Having already touched upon the UK’s shaky fiscal position, all that really needs to be added, now that the Chancellor has actually delivered his Autumn Statement, is a quick, ‘I told you so!’

The gloomy prospect is thus one of more borrowing, more spending, stealth tax tinkering, an ill-advised switch to industrial intervention, cost-overrun concrete pouring, and even the setting up of a special credit facility for exporters in a country hardly noted for being under-populated with banks and other lending institutions! Continue reading …

Time to Get Real

by CantillonCH

Having just managed to quell a dangerous rebellion among her fellow Committee members, it did not seem the most opportune time for Janet Yellen to start dreaming of the sort of post-war ‘demand management’ that would happily trade a few extra percentage points of price inflation in order to move a little further up the employment axis in that unshakable vision of the Phillips Curve that seems to dominate the modern central banker’s thought processes.

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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Fed’s Toolkit

by CantillonCH

In light of the breathless anticipation which preceded the Fed Chair’s speech to her peers at Jackson Hole and cognisant of the mild state of befuddlement with which it was received, we felt it would be of interest to readers to have a translation, together with a gloss (each in bold), in order to try to remove some of the obscurities contained therein. Continue reading …

Io, Saturnalia!

by CantillonCH

Ah, Brexit! What is there left to say that not already been said, most of it either out of folly or falsehood? As regards the overall political backdrop to this lightning bolt of mass discontent, the only thing that is clear is that there is no clarity—neither within Britain nor without. If, as the Good Book tells us, a house divided against itself cannot stand—hard hats on, people! Continue reading …