Away from the headlines about The Panama Papers, global financial markets turmoiled quietly this week with a surge in equity and FX volatility and banks suffering more death blows. However, something happened in Saudi Arabia’s banking system that was largely uncovered by anyone in the mainstream…overnight deposit rates exploded to their highest since the financial…
Currency intervention schemes do not work. Period. Ask the Swiss National Bank. Ask the Bank of Japan. Any temporary results are bottled up to explode later (Switzerland), or simply proceed on their merry way with perhaps a slight delay like we have seen in Japan, Brazil and other places, countless times. Nonetheless, people propose all…
Not to continue beating a dead horse, but I have a stick and the carcass is right in front of me. The entire supply chain inside the US economy is full agreement both on where the economy is right now and, perhaps more importantly, how it came to be that way. Such harmony is not…
As oil prices look set to expand their almost 2-year rout, major energy companies are accelerating their dividend cuts and further chopping costs in an effort to shore up dwindling cash flows. However, it’s not only the smaller, more-leveraged exploration outfits that have been busy housecleaning. Even the fairly large producers – considered safe harbors…
To Listen to the Podcast Audio: Click Here Mike Gleason: It is my great privilege to be joined now by James Rickards. Mr. Rickards is Chief Global Strategist at the West Shore Funds, editor of Strategic Intelligence, a monthly newsletter, and Director of The James Rickards Project an inquiry into the complex dynamics of geopolitics…
The risk budgets are again unchanged for this month. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between risk assets and bonds remains at 40/60. The changes in our indicators this month were not significant enough to warrant a change. Credit spreads stopped narrowing and have recently been widening again, ever so slightly. Valuations, long term…
Sure, it may just go to $650 an ounce first, which incidentally would be awesome for those of us who love going long asymmetry. Rest assured however, when the wheels truly come off of what is easily the craziest monetary experiment of modern times, there will be no stopping gold from running. A lesson I…
Strategists often like to cloak themselves in the fundamental or technical mantle. But parse their words carefully, and the best fundamentalists talk about support and resistance levels, while the ace technicians refer to the latest economic data points. The reality is that the best of the best are using both all the time. The differential…
I have been writing about Deutsche Bank for about six months now. My first post, back in October 2015, showed how DB, then trading above $29/share, was sitting on multi-decade support. The chart was showing warning signs that bad things were on the horizon, particularly if it broke below $25. Low and behold, price did…
In July last year, the BEA reconfigured its GDP benchmarks to incorporate the results of the comprehensive 2012 Economic Census. That broad and deep survey found much less “recovery” than the BEA had originally anticipated through its system of stochastic predictions. It is believed that these statistical agencies of the government actually measure results in…
