Comment The chart above shows Argentina’s stock market declined almost 10% in reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision. Reuters – Supreme Court rejects Argentina appeal in bond fight The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear Argentina’s appeal over its battle with hedge funds that refused to take part in its debt restructurings, an… Continue reading Argentina’s Debt Debacle
Market Watch – Michael A Gayed: Why the Fed fears Uber Uber is disruptive to the taxi and limousine industry in many ways, with some arguing that the ultimate direction for the company will be driver-less cars that can create trips on demand, reduce cars on the road, and ultimately eliminate driver jobs over time.… Continue reading Disruptive Technology
The Wall Street Journal – Flows Return to Emerging Markets Investment Flows Take Pressure Off Emerging-Market Governments A fresh wave of investment inflows is taking the pressure off some emerging-market governments that had at long last started to tackle economic overhauls. As investors started fleeing the developing world around this time last year on anticipation… Continue reading Emerging Market Fund Flows
Bloomberg.com – Puts Shrink Amid Longest Run of Market Calm Since 1995 For 40 days, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) has failed to post a gain or loss exceeding 1 percent, the longest stretch of calm since 1995. That’s squashing demand for options that protect against turbulence. For every 100 bullish calls trading… Continue reading More Stories About The Lack Of Volatility
Next New Deal – Two Simple Reasons to Not Fight Bubbles With Higher Interest Rates I hate to spoil what happens when you try to kill two birds with one stone, but you usually end up missing both of them. In policy we have targets and we have instruments. Targets are states of the world… Continue reading How To Fight Bubbles
The Financial Times – Henny Sender: Reasons to be bearish on Chinese banks Chinese bank shares are now cheap. But they may well become cheaper – especially as many banks are planning another round of preferred share offers (despite generous dividend yields). There are numerous reasons to be bearish on Chinese banks. One of the… Continue reading Troubled Chinese Banking
The Washington Post – Matt O’Brein: The biggest housing bubble in the world is in … Canada? very bubble begins as a boom, but not every boom becomes a bubble—only the ones that go bust do. The trick is figuring out which booms have gotten so vertiginous that a bust is almost inevitable. That is,… Continue reading A Canadian Housing Bubble?
The New York Times – JACQUES LESLIE: The True Cost of Hidden Money A Piketty Protégé’s Theory on Tax Havens “There’s a profound shift in attitudes that happened in the 1980s,” Mr. Zucman says. “In the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, taxes were much higher, yet it was not considered normal to try to aggressively minimize… Continue reading Tax Cheating
The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: Interest-Rate Puzzle Confronts Federal Reserve Officials Policy Makers Wrestle Over How Fast Economy Can Grow in the Long Term When Federal Reserve officials gather for their policy meeting Tuesday and Wednesday, the most challenging question won’t be where to push interest rates in the next few days, weeks… Continue reading Previewing This Week’s FOMC Meeting
The Financial Times – ‘Yellen Index’ flashes imminent Fed tightening Investors are not betting Janet Yellen will follow a fellow central banker’s lead and declare interest rate rises “could happen sooner than markets currently expect”. Suck hawkish cries can be left to Mark Carney. The Federal Reserve chairman, by contrast, will probably use her post-policy meeting… Continue reading Yellen’s Actions Speak Louder Than Her Words
<Click on chart for larger image> Comment Last week Bloomberg updated its monthly survey of economists. The table above shows the latest outlook for 10-year yields over the next six months. April’s survey attracted a lot of attention as 100% of economists expected higher yields. May’s survey down-ticked to 99% bearishness. 70 of 71 economists… Continue reading 99% Of Economists Are Still Looking For Higher Rates