The New York Times – Every One of the World’s Big Economies Is Now Growing A decade after the world descended into a devastating economic crisis, a key marker of revival has finally been achieved. Every major economy on earth is expanding at once, a synchronous wave of growth that is creating jobs, lifting fortunes… Continue reading Economies Across The World Are Growing
The Wall Street Journal – Investor Thirst for Foreign Stocks May Be Speeding Dollar’s Decline Global investors are shifting more of their money overseas, betting that even as the U.S. stock market reaches new highs a resurgent global economy creates greater opportunities elsewhere. That rising tide of capital chasing foreign stocks may even be helping… Continue reading Money Flowing To Foreign Stocks
OPEN Commitment of Traders Analysis For January 26, 2018 On January 26, 2018, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released the Commitments of Traders (CoT) statistics for Tuesday, January 23, 2018. Click on the open button above for some charts and a few short webcasts noting some of the data we found interesting from our new… Continue reading CoT Webcasts For January 26, 2018
The Wall Street Journal – Dollar’s Drop Fuels a Fire That’s Already Raging A weak dollar has been great for markets…But a further rapid fall in the dollar may yet cause headaches for central bankers who have created the conditions in which markets are partying. In the U.S., financial conditions have been loosening even as… Continue reading A Look At The Dollar’s Decline
Bloomberg – All That Glitters Is the Dollar’s Weakness The metal’s recent rise isn’t about inflation rising or cryptocurrencies falling. Gold has been on a tear of late, climbing more than $100 per troy ounce in the last six weeks, briefly exceeding the 2017 high of $1,359 in the process. Coincidental with that have been… Continue reading Gold’s Rise Is All About The Dollar
Bloomberg – Goldman Thinks This Fed Meeting May Not Be a Sleeper After All Far from being a complete non-event, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expects a slightly hawkish upgrade of language at the Federal Reserve meeting this week, slated to be Janet Yellen’s last. “We expect the FOMC to issue a generally upbeat post-meeting statement… Continue reading A Preview Of This Week’s FOMC Meeting
The Economist – Market volatility has been low, encouraging risk-taking It is possible to calculate implied volatility over a two-year period, creating a slope akin to the yield curve, which measures interest rates for different lending durations. Back in 2006-07 this volatility curve was very flat, suggesting that investors thought that conditions would continue to… Continue reading Will Volatility Ever Return?
The Economist – Venezuela’s currency plumbs unknown depths Hyperinflation has seen the bolívar lose 99.9% of its value in two years The spending power of the bolívar, Venezuela’s currency, had collapsed long before then. The Economist’s Big Mac Index gives a rough guide to how fast it has fallen. The index is based on the idea of… Continue reading Venezuela
Crain’s Chicago Business – Illinois ponders pension-fund moonshot: a $107B bond sale Springfield lawmakers are so desperate to shore up the state’s massively underfunded retirement system that they’re willing to entertain an eye-popping wager: Borrowing $107 billion and letting it ride in the financial markets. The legislature’s personnel and pensions committee plans to meet on Jan. 30 to hear… Continue reading This Happens At A Top
The Wall Street Journal – Bankers at Davos: Can Anything Stop the Good Times? Behind the optimism is the strength of corporate earnings, but some investors feel the froth has gone too far Bankers and executives at the World Economic Forum are celebrating a growing economy and rising markets. They see a continuing string of deals… Continue reading Davos Man versus The Consumer
Real Time Economics – How Hurricanes Helped and Hurt Fourth-Quarter Growth Hurricane Harvey ravaged Southeast Texas and Louisiana in late August and early September. The Category 4 storm flooded Houston and surrounding areas and caused billions of dollars in damage. Hurricane Irma, also a powerful Category 4, pounded Florida, southern states and the Caribbean in… Continue reading The Hurricanes’ Effect On GDP