Does it make sense to plot multi-decade asset prices on a linear scale? How reliable are macro ‘profit’ estimates? Why is the curve flattening and what will a reduction in Central Bank reserve balances mean for assets?
S0me recent short snaps from my LinkedIn & Twitter feeds plus you can watch my latest update ‘China: Unbalanced’ here, on YouTube Continue reading
[An edited version of the following appeared in Moneyweek under the title, ‘What’s unsettling the US Dollar?‘]
‘Dollar makes worst start to the year since 1985,’ screamed the headlines a few weeks ago in a classic click-bait attempt to get people to read about what they already should know by using a somewhat artificial statistic – after all, since when did the world revolve around what happened specifically between Dec 31st and July 31st?
[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.
The more our would-be Philosopher Kings attempt to display the awesome panoply of their intellectual armour, the more we think, not of the Greek sage from whom they seem to draw inspiration, but of Mickey Mouse’s dopey canine friend.
In bonds, the Bears are mounting another one of their forlorn hope charges against the central bank ramparts which is, in turn, rendering equities a little more expensive in relative, as well as absolute, terms. Commodities, meanwhile, are firmly rooted in mean reversion mode.
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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.
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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.
SUMMARY: Thanks to the election of President Trump and to his uncompromising attitude to the establishment media, much hot air is being expended on the subject of ‘fake news’. What we should really be getting worked up about is ‘fake economics’, for this is a much more pervasive evil, as well as a much more persistent one. Continue reading
Amid the relative torpor of the US holiday, it might be the moment to wax a little philosophical and ask if you, the listener, have ever noticed that so much of what passes for economic wisdom today involves the persistent overuse of the word ‘uncertainty’? Continue reading
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
As what will be an interval greatly shortened by the Thanksgiving Day holiday dawns, traders and investors seem happy to continue where they left off on Friday, buying stocks, selling currencies, and giving bonds a fairly wide berth.
A little respite would not be entirely unwelcome after a period in which we have experienced record setting moves and switches of positioning in the likes of copper – where the latest numbers from the regulator show the non-commercials now boast a tally of net longs only once briefly topped – and that way back in 2003. Continue reading