Monthly Archive: December 2016

SMI set to end 2016 in negative territory

2016-12-31

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2016-12-31

In the last week of the year, the Swiss Market Index deepened its loss for the year as banks continued lower on low trading volumes. The SMI is set to end 2016 with an annual loss of 6.8% as banking and pharmaceutical giants pulled the index down in a year of turbulent trading. A volatile 2016 started with a brutal equity sell off as investors dumped global stocks on fears of an accelerating economic slowdown in China. The Brexit vote in June...

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Will Tax Cuts and More Federal Borrowing/Spending Fix What’s Broken?

2016-12-31

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2016-12-31

Wages & Salaries as perfent of GDP, energy crisis, financialization boom, internet boom, housing boom
Charles Hugh Smith combines the best graphs on the declining wage share of GDP in this post. He answers the question if the tax cuts and more federal borrowing and spending can solve what is broken in the U.S. economy.

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How You Become a Crony

2016-12-31

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2016-12-31

Goldman Sachs Group
BALTIMORE – Who’s the biggest winner so far? “Government Sachs!” Fortune magazine reports that the winningest person since Trump’s election is Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

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When Did Our Elites Become Self-Serving Parasites?

2016-12-31

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2016-12-31

When did our financial and political elites become self-serving parasites? Some will answer that elites have always been self-serving parasites; as tempting as it may be to offer a blanket denunciation of elites, this overlooks the eras in which elites rose to meet existential crises.

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FX Daily, December 30: Dollar Slips into Year End

2016-12-30

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2016-12-30

New Year
In exceptionally thin conditions that characterize the year-end markets, a reportedly computer-generated order lifted the euro from about $1.05 to a little more than $1.0650 in a few minutes early in the Asian sessions.

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Miners, including Swiss-based Glencore, unearth a profit bonanza with rally set to last into 2017

2016-12-30

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2016-12-30

Coal-mining
Miners had been digging in one of Australia’s oldest collieries for almost a century until operations wound down a year ago, the victim of plunging global commodity prices.

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Fake News, Mass Hysteria and Induced Insanity

2016-12-30

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2016-12-30

Obesity Among US Adults Ages 20-74
We've heard a lot about "fake news" from those whose master narratives are threatened by alternative sources and analyses. We've heard less about the master narratives being threatened.

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India’s Rapid Progression Toward a Police State

2016-12-30

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2016-12-30

Mahad-Poladpur bridge collapse
India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, announced on 8th November 2016 that Rs 500 (~$7.50) and Rs 1,000 (~$15) banknotes would no longer be legal tender. Linked are Part-I, Part-II, Part-III, Part-IV, and Part-V, which provide updates on the demonetization saga and how Modi is acting as a catalyst to hasten the rapid degradation of India and what remains of its institutions.

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Wreck the Halls

2016-12-30

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2016-12-30

Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, Daily
Despite the best efforts of the bulls to make history happen, they’ve been unable to ‘git-r-done.’ At the time of this writing, the Dow is facing another bout of arrested development; it has yet to notch 20,000 for the very first time.

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FX Daily, December 29: Dollar, Equities and Yields Fall

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

FX Performance, December 29 2016 Movers and Shakers
In thin holiday markets, a correction to the trends seen in Q4 has materialized. The US dollar is heavy. Japanese and European equities are lower. Bonds are firmer.

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Davos Staff May Sleep In Shipping Containers As Billionaires Swarm Resort

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

davos 2017
With January just around the corner, the world's billionaires, CEOs, politicians and oligarchs prepare to take their private planes to Davos, Switzerland for their annual convocation at the World Economic Forum, where they discuss such diverse topics as global warming due to greenhouse gases (which exempts Gulfstream jets) and the dangers of record wealth inequality (which exempts them), while snacking on $39 hot dogs and $50 Caesar salads.

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Fake News? It’s All Fake!

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

the addled cannibals
BALTIMORE – In January of this year, the Empire Herald reported that a “meth-addled couple” had eaten a homeless man in New York City’s Central Park. Later, Now8News reported that a can of cookie dough had “exploded in a woman’s vagina”; the woman was alleged to be shoplifting.

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Gold – Ready to Spring Another Surprise

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

Treasure Chest
Below is an update of a number of interesting data points related to the gold market. Whether “interesting” will become “meaningful” remains to be seen, as most of gold’s fundamental drivers aren’t yet bullishly aligned.

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A Tale of Two Housing Markets: Hot and Not So Hot

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

GDP Count
If we had to guess which areas will likely experience the smallest declines in prices and recover the soonest, which markets would you bet on?

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Switzerland UBS Consumption Indicator November: Subdued private consumption in 2017 despite solid November figures

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

Switzerland Private Consumption and UBS Consumption Indicator, YoY 2016
The UBS Consumption Indicator climbed to 1.43 points in November from 1.39. Another strong month in domestic tourism and the positive trend on the automobile market made the rise possible. Initially a solid start is to be expected for 2017, but momentum is expected to subside.

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Cool Video: Double Feature on Bloomberg

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

Marc Chandler
I am finishing the year like I began it, on Bloomberg Television, talking about the dollar and Fed policy. Bloomberg has made two clips of my interview available.

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FX Daily, December 28: Short Note for Holiday Markets

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

FX Performance, December 28 2016 Movers and Shakers
Economic data: Japan stands out with industrial production in Nov rising 1.5%, the most in five months. It was a little less than expected, but the expectations for Dec (2%) and Jan (2.2%) are constructive.

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Great Graphic: Real Wages

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

Real Wages 2007 - 2015
This Great Graphic caught my eye. It was tweeted by Ninja Economics. Her point was about immigration. German had much higher immigration than the UK, but also saw real wage increase of nearly 14% in the 2007-2015 period, while real wages in the UK fell nearly 10.5%.

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Grab-Bag of Resolutions for 2017

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

Bitcoin One-Year Chart
Here's a grab-bag of resolutions with something for just about every persuasion. I resolve to never utter or write the word "Trump" in 2017. (Good luck with that...)

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Weekly Sight Deposits and Speculative Positions: SNB intervenes, while Speculators go Long CHF

2016-12-27

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2016-12-27

Euro/Swiss Franc FX Cross Rate
The Fed has hiked rates and with this fait accomplis speculators sold the news. They closed their short CHF and opened new CHF longs. The SNB, however, intervened again for 0.5 billion CHF.

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