The reason I have been characterizing the ECB’s actions since this summer as “desperate” is entirely due to the fact they are simply redoing things and expecting everyone to simply assume they are acting anew. That may not be entirely the case with their obsession with Eonia (more on that below), but narrowing the corridor has been the active policy [...]
IBM blames the cloud for its dismal results, but the fact is that IBM should own the cloud outright (figuratively, of course). If the business has changed so much in the past few years due to customer shifting, then why wasn’t IBM leading that process? Why are they now actually admitting what amounts to a dereliction of managerial duties? Since [...]
Yesterday, in the wake of some intense credit market drama, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard acknowledged the obvious. Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Bullard showed just how upside down these “markets” have become. “Inflation expectations are dropping in the U.S., and that is something that a central bank cannot abide,” Mr. Bullard said. Referring to the process of [...]
The PBOC continues along with its path of “targeting” liquidity rather than “flooding” as has been done in the past. Expectations for Chinese action, however, seem to be resistant to getting that message. This is not something that is just now being applied, as if a sudden and unanticipated change in thinking. The entire default drama at the beginning of [...]
The problem with being long gold, or even a fan of gold as anathema to central bank “flexibility” in central planning, is that you are often reminded the messiness of its modern nature. Gold as money, properly understood, meant money as property which is why physical metal fit so well for maybe all of “civilized” human history. However, the unassailable [...]
The good news for global “markets” is that the eurodollar curve suggests some further relief from the persistent “tightening” that has gripped the “dollar” system since July. The bad news is that the curve is now less enthralled with the idea that the FOMC might actually raise rates as they say they will. That includes ignoring several assurances offered just [...]
The orthodox notion of monetary policy, following its Keynesian root, is that spending for the sake of spending will lead to a healthy economy. It does not matter, to this philosophy, how or why that spending takes place; only that it does. If, for example, the Federal Reserve can “stimulate” the interest rate sensitive sectors of the economy, like automobiles, [...]
It is worth furthering the point raised by San Francisco Fed President John Williams. Just as when QE2 ended it wasn’t the end of QE in America, the belated end of QE3 and QE4 also may be just a temporary interruption. Mr. Williams gave essentially two criteria, though I added a few more from my own observations: "If inflation isn't [...]
With a grim reality setting in for at least a temporary interruption to the euphoria, that background of a QE-less world takes hold. Without any real recovery to show for all the manipulations and intrusions, a global reality, there are none but stock prices (aside from a few confused PMI’s) to record on the “benefits” side of the ledger. The [...]
There was some pretty bad news out of Germany last night. The nations’ Economy Ministry cut its growth forecast for 2014 by a third (from an unsatisfying 1.8% to a worrisome 1.2%), which is more than a little coming this late in the year. In addition, the closely watched ZEW survey (I don’t watch it, but “markets” are fixated) fell [...]
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