<Click on graphic for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Investors Flee Commodities Prices of raw materials tumble, underscoring an aversion to commodity investments as the Fed prepares to raise rates The prices of raw materials from oil and gold to copper, cotton and sugar tumbled, underscoring an increasing aversion to commodity investments as… Continue reading Tumbling Commodities
The Financial Times – James Grant: Magical thinking divorces markets from reality Prices should be discovered in the market, not administered by a government, writes James Grant The modern financial animal is wont to assume that he or she lives in an age of science. Just peruse the economic research that the great central banks… Continue reading Administered Versus Free Markets
CNBC – Why the Fed really wants to raise rates: Jim Bianco Forget apparent improvements in the economy. There is another reason why the Federal Reserve wants to tighten monetary policy, Bianco Research President Jim Bianco said Friday. “They’re raising rates because of their words, ‘financial stability.’ They are worried that the markets have been… Continue reading What Is The Fed Really Doing?
The Financial Times – John Plender: Investors cannot see through market froth Bubbles will be clearer as central banks start to normalise policy For unreconstructed efficient market theorists bubbles do not exist. For semi-reconstructed ones, they exist but, as former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan claimed in the late 1990s, they are perceptible only after… Continue reading Are The Markets Frothy?
The Wall Street Journal – Lawrence Goodman And Stephen Dizard: Fixing the Fed’s Liquidity Mess Quantitative easing and a near-zero interest rate have produced lopsided positions that risk another crisis. In March 2012 we wrote in these pages how the Fed was manipulating the U.S. Treasury market through QE by buying an unprecedented 61% of… Continue reading Bond Market Liquidity
<Click on graphic for larger image> <Click on graphic for larger image> The Financial Times – Oil: some crude numbers Even were all the world’s supply targets to be met, the price would still have to rise MGA proposes this simple thought experiment. Assume Opec continues to produce steadily at or slightly above its target… Continue reading Falling Crude Oil
The New York Times – Bethany McLean: Fannie and Freddie are Back, Bigger and Badder Than Ever At a time of economic uncertainty, when income inequality is a major issue, it is also not a great thing for social cohesion to require those at the lower end of the income scale to start paying far… Continue reading Fannie And Freddie
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Telegraph (UK) – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Speculators smash gold as dollar squeeze tightens News that China’s gold reserves are far lower than assumed has rattled investors, but Beijing may not have told the full story Powerful speculators have launched an unprecedented attack on the world gold market, driving prices… Continue reading Gold Gets Smashed … In 1 Minute
The Wall Street Journal – Traders Beat Computer-Driven Hedge Funds Computer-driven sector is on a three-month losing streak In hedge-fund land, man has pulled ahead of machine. Computer-driven funds that trade using complex programs, often devised by scientists and mathematicians, have been hurt by choppy markets. According to data group Hedge Fund Research, the $272… Continue reading Man vs. Machine
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<Click on graphic for larger image> The Financial Times – Beware the Fed on the ides of September Janet Yellen’s testimony to Congress last week clearly signaled that the FOMC is almost ready to announce lift-off in US rates. The ides of September (or, strictly, three days later, at the FOMC meeting on 16 September)… Continue reading Timing The Rate Hike
<Click on chart for larger image> Global Times (China) – Accusations over GDP figures are frivolous Several mainstream Western media outlets have questioned the authenticity of China’s second quarter GDP growth of 7 percent, claiming that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) faked the figures to boost investors’ confidence. They have this skepticism simply because… Continue reading Questioning China’s GDP Release