Cracks in the Facade: Monitor update

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

Japan, sterling & more: Monitor Update

The latest edition can be had here:-

17-06-05 M4 No 3

Including a look at Japanese equities, the US dollar & sterling, the latest US data round, the significance of yield curves, and misconceptions about monetary ‘velocity’.

Courtesy of Cantillon Consulting

Now where was I?

After a hiatus of several months, I have resumed publication of the newly-titled ‘Money, Macro & Markets Monitor‘ under the auspices of Cantillon Consulting.

Please click the link for a complimentary copy:-  17-05-25 M4 No 1

 

 

Give us another Oil boom

Dear Lord, Y’all give us another oil boom…

If there is one sector of the US economy where an Austrian-style Boom-and-Bust bust has taken place, it is the onshore oil industry – though, by extension, other primary resource industries, such as metals and mining and farming have also suffered in the ongoing aftermath of the general commodity bust.

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Faking it

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

The Austrian Prescription

At the start of the year it has become wearily traditional for us pundits to offer one of two genres of prediction.

The first takes the form of a genuine—if ultimately foredoomed—attempt to lift a ragged corner of those thick shrouds of unknowability which separate today from tomorrow. The second combines such futility with a certain arch attempt to make one’s name in the event one chances upon what can afterwards be trumpeted as the inspired prediction of what the consensus presently regards as a highly unlikely event. Continue reading

You gets what you pays for

Reuters’ story that SAFE told its banks they should be as obstructive as possible in meeting customer demands for foreign currency, but should absolute not divulge the reason why, certainly succeeded in causing a stir in markets.    Continue reading

A Dollar is What I Need

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

Time to Get Real

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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