There probably should be a cottage industry trying to figure out what Albert Einstein actually said or wrote quite against what is typically attributed to him (or Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and many others). One such nugget purported from his genius was that compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. That is how the sentiment seems to [...]
JP Morgan announced back in February that the firm would be scaling back, particularly in “non-operational” deposits. These were not retail deposits in the traditional sense from regular folks doing actual banking, but rather institutional “deposits” linked to shadow conduits and wholesale functions. The idea, along with some other restructuring measures, was to cut about $5 billion in costs over [...]
The US Producer Price Index declined 0.5% month-over-month in September, much farther than the 0.2% drop expected by economists (statisticians, really). With retail sales providing little positive emphasis even among the large segment of commentary focused exclusively on the monthly variation rather than the intense consequence of wider context, the idea that the Fed will confirm the final stage of [...]
Since some markets seem to be waiting on either longer lingering in ZIRP (US) or renewed and heavier QE (Japan, Europe) it is worth examining exactly what they are anticipating. Obviously, that desire doesn’t extend into the real economy since the downward fluctuation in 2015 pretty much dissolves and absolves any direct monetarism correlation. What is left is a high [...]
Most people would look at a 40-month deviation as being rationally altering, maybe even something so permanent. The Fed, on the other hand, along with economists, have convinced themselves that somehow three and a half years is but a temporary detour. And so monetary policy and the recovery outlook itself are supposed to somehow straddle that inconvenience while still emitting [...]
It may be unexpected to economists, but the sudden and uniform economic downside that is either appearing or strengthening almost everywhere in the world is closely tracking the wholesale “dollar.” In many cases, that flows through China and so is given that gloss, but there can be little doubt now about either cause or effect. In Japan, machine orders (a [...]
On September 28, Mark Haefele, Global CIO at UBS Wealth Management, wrote at CNBC.com there was much more to the central banking offerings than currently employed. The implication, obviously, was a reassuring call to not heed any darkening outlook. Blaming that upon “overanalyzed data”, Mr. Haefele insisted that investors were becoming far too pessimistic given the potential monetarism yet untapped. [...]
The superficial transcendence of stocks notwithstanding, there continues a deeper and more devious trend in financial markets. As noted earlier today, while stock rationalizations were stoked by the inconsistent logic of “lower for longer”, other markets, the “dollar” in particular, are being thoroughly infected by great doubt. In some open episodes, that doubt has turned to fear, but the permeation [...]
Concurrent to more survey-based indications of a US manufacturing slowdown, economists have been quick to blame overseas problems such that it leaves a “strong” US economy as a baseline. On the other side of that equation, China’s manufacturing likewise is rapidly declining but somehow with the same point of blame. Both Chinese PMI’s were decidedly weak, with the private version [...]
While the slide in US manufacturing is being interpreted far differently as nothing to worry about, overseas the recessionary implications are forthrightly described. The contradiction is amazing simply because the same pattern is given such different interpretation even where they are closely synchronized and both given amorphous “global” growth connotations. In Japan, contraction in industry due to “global growth” is [...]
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