What do you do if you are China? As that question pertains to the “dollar”, they have been asking themselves as well as the rest of the world since the panic. In various ways, the Chinese have been positioning as if for the end of the dollar system, which has given critics (economists) cause to dismiss it as nothing more [...]
Maybe it is just too complicated to do much more, but for the most part central banks work in the here and now. They may stray from time to time into strategic thinking, but given the mathematical limitations of traditional statistics, weaknesses we all know too well in 2016, that is of limited value. Even in normal times monetary policy [...]
In conventional thinking, China’s problems are China’s problems. As those related to its currency, it is believed a mere matter of either intentional policy (devaluation = export stimulus) or the outflow of “hot money” because of China’s unique circumstances. From this position, one populated by policymakers, what has transpired over the past year plus was all very confusing. It is [...]
You can only pick one. Going back to around July 11, the People’s Bank of China decided for whatever their reasons CNY had gone far enough and that the central bank would intervene to all over again to obtain a stable currency importantly against the dollar. This was nothing new, however, as the PBOC had interceded on several other notable [...]
On January 10, the South African rand crashed about 9% in just a matter of minutes. It was the largest move for the currency since October 2008, an ominous yet poignant sign of just how bad everything was globally at that time. CNY had been pummeled up until the PBOC acted but a few days before. Even though the world [...]
In December 2000, the Financial Post orchestrated what it billed as a great debate, a clash of titans pitting two giants of economics against each other in a series of eight questions. Dubbed the Nobel Money Duel, on the one side was Robert Mundell, a Nobel Laureate often credited as the “father of the euro.” On the other was Milton [...]
It seems as if Deutsche Bank is on everyone’s mind, even if nobody knows exactly why. Stocks were down today which is really unremarkable but has become so by the standards of just this year where nothing bad is supposed to be able to intrude. That aside, the news from Germany was quite unnerving. Bloomberg reported early this afternoon that [...]
On August 31, 2008, Germany’s Commerzbank announced that it was purchasing ailing rival Dresdner Bank from Allianz SE. As usual, however, the deal wasn’t described in those terms as nothing ever is so honest in public. Then-Allianz CEO Michael Diekmann said at the time of the announcement: As a strong bank, the new company can safeguard jobs in the long [...]
Perhaps the hardest part of analyzing the eurodollar system is synchronizing all its various dimensions into a common perspective. Coming from the traditional standpoint that views all these various parts as if they are all separate, such a task is often quite difficult. For example, the repo market is almost always described from the cash perspective as if there only [...]
For quite some time now I have been writing (constantly) about “something” going in “dollar” markets and funding markets all over the world. Chinese markets related to “dollars” have been the most prominent in their disorder, but there is a degree of causation that runs from eurodollars to China and perhaps back again. In other words, Chinese illiquidity is not [...]
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