Trump or Biden? Will we even know tomorrow? Many purport that markets are leaning one way or the other, typically based on whichever market leaning puts whatever preferred candidate in the most favorable light. Everyone’s a winner in the run up. I don’t think there’s a lot of trading that goes with either candidate. As things stand right now, from [...]
This isn’t about COVID. It’s been building since the end of August, a shift in mood, perception, and reality that began turning things several months before even then. With markets fickle yet again, a lot today, what’s going on here?What you’ll hear or have already heard is something about Europe and more lockdowns, fears about a second wave of the [...]
Physical cash vs. bank reserves. Quality growth vs. quantity. Xi Jinping vs. everyone not onboard with Xi Jinping. All three contests are actually very simple and straightforward – once you let go of the strong economy, money printing Federal Reserve nonsense. As to the last of the trio, Emperor Xi has been awfully keen this year to redo government flags.Communists [...]
You pick up a newspaper (metaphorically, hardly anyone does this literally anymore) and you’d be left with the impression the year is 1979 again. Forget 2017; that was child’s play, more like 1968 in the mainstream imagination. October 2020 is going to mark the beginning of the biggest one in decades. Any day now.Inflation, of course. The Fed, the media [...]
The dominating feature during the last months and days of globally synchronized growth (Reflation #3, to you and me) wasn’t inflation nor growth. It was instead CNY. Taken at face value, the marvelous resurrection of China’s currency after 2014-16’s debacle (Euro$ #3, to you and me) did seem consistent with a global dollar system (eurodollar, to you and me) rebound.And [...]
The Federal Reserve is the current contender for taking the crown from the Japanese. Central bankers, in particular, are like hoarders; they never throw any policy idea away. It doesn’t matter how many times it fails, or how spectacularly. Japanese policymakers have stuck with QE for now double-digit attempts without anything to show for it. Instead, whichever thing gets rebranded. [...]
Who would’ve ever guessed? Jay Powell flooded the world with dollars, “overseas” swaps and all, but more and more you get the impression he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. The Fed Chairman, of course, is never alone when it comes to these things. He’s plenty of company.Recall, for a moment, how the IMF in June 2018 “rescued” Argentina. Big, [...]
As one of Africa’s largest copper producers, it seemed like a no-brainer. Financial firms across the Western world, pension funds from the US or banks in Europe, they lined up for a bit of additional yield. This was 2012, still global recovery on the horizon – at least that’s what “they” all kept saying. Zambia did what everyone does, the [...]
It’s always something. There’s forever some mystery factor standing in the way. On the topic of inflation, for years it was one “transitory” issue after another. The media, on behalf of the central bankers it holds up as a technocratic ideal, would report these at face value. The more obvious explanation, the argument with all the evidence, just couldn’t be [...]
Back in early June 2018, the Brazilian real was in free-fall (again). Never bothering to explain why or what was happening, the country’s top central banker just gathered the media together in front of him confident in how what he’d say to its members would be reported as fact. As it was. Not just by Brazil’s press, either. Even if [...]
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