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
Category Archives: USA
US GDP – Where’s the Beef?
The old adage that ‘the market must climb a wall of worry’ – i.e., that the best bull runs take place to the accompaniment of a swelling chorus of doubters – seems to have taken on a broader application in the economy at large where everything and anything which can be negatively construed currently calls forth a howl of rancorous ‘I told you so’s’ from the Herd.
Dies illa? Not just yet.
The First Time as Tragedy
In the past, our ready predisposition to fear the worst has proven to be well-founded. Indeed, through much of the two years leading up to the Great Crash of 2008, there was all too much evidence to ignore that a kind of collective madness had gripped the whole universe of investment world and had spilled out from thence into every plot of building land and every auction house in the real world.
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.
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
Uncertainty! GASP!
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
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
Givers of the Law
Pride of place for political news outside the US must go to the UK High Court’s decision that the infamous Article 50 clause by which Brexit is to be achieved cannot take place without being subject to Parliamentary approval. Continue reading
Just how overvalued ARE US equities?
In this complimentary extract from last month’s edition of ‘Money, Macro & Markets‘, that’s the issue at which I take a detailed look. Please follow the link to access the PDF:-
Historical Norms? Really, Janet?
In the Q&A which followed the latest Federal Reserve exercise in ostrich imitation, Janet Yellen offered up this giant hostage to fortune, if only in the spirit of she-would-say-that-wouldn’t-she:
‘Overall, I would say that the threats to financial stability I would characterize, at this point, as moderate. In general, I would not say that asset valuations are out of line with historical norms.’
Patently, if she has somehow arrived at the determination that there is no indeterminably constituted asset bubble in operation, then it figures that non-bubble asset prices cannot be out of line with their norms. Chalk one up to answering one’s own question in the affirmative.
But how much truth is there in this claim? Not very much at all as you will discover if you click on the following link to read this extract of the latest monthly ‘Money, Macro & Markets‘: