Category Archive: 5) Global Macro

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Charles Hugh Smith – All Currencies Will See Catastrophic Drop

2018-02-18

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Financial writer Charles Hugh Smith sees one very big problem coming at us, and that is a dramatic loss in buying power of the U.S. dollar, but it’s not just the dollar. According to Smith, “All these currencies, there is nothing backing the currencies except the government’s force. That’s the yen, the euro, the dollar …

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Emerging Markets: What Changed

2018-02-17

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2018-02-17

The National Stock Exchange of India will end all licensing agreements and stop offering live prices overseas. Philippine central bank cut reserve requirements for commercial banks. Egypt cut rates for the first time since 2015. Israeli police recommended that Prime Minister Netanyahu be charged. South Africa President Zuma resigned before a no confidence vote was held.

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America’s Jurassic-sized debt, cartooned | The Economist

2018-02-16

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America’s Jurassic-sized debt. Will America come to regret its abandonment of budget principles? Our cartoonist, KAL, imagines the deficits might be too monstrous to control Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.st/2BZBGtD The US deficit is likely to rise to nearly 6% of GDP in 2019 and 2020. Our cartoonist, KAL, imagines …

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China: Inflation? Not Even Reflation

2018-02-16

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2018-02-16

China Price Stability, Jan 1997 - 2018
The conventional interpretation of “reflation” in the second half of 2016 was that it was simply the opening act, the first step in the long-awaiting global recovery. That is what reflation technically means as distinct from recovery; something falls off, and to get back on track first there has to be acceleration to make up that lost difference.

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How did Kosovo become a country? | The Economist

2018-02-15

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Kosovo, Europe’s newest country, was formed 10 years ago this week. It is peaceful today, but the path to its creation lay in one of Europe’s most brutal sectarian conflicts. Warning: this film contains graphic content. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.st/2BZBGtD In 2008, Kosovo became Europe’s newest country. This small, …

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What Just Changed?

2018-02-15

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2018-02-15

Asset Prices and GDP, 1992 - 2018
The illusion that risk can be limited delivered three asset bubbles in less than 20 years. Has anything actually changed in the past two weeks? The conventional bullish answer is no, nothing's changed; the global economy is growing virtually everywhere, inflation is near-zero, credit is abundant, commodities will remain cheap for the foreseeable future, assets are not in bubbles, and the global financial system is in a state of sustainable...

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Online dating and its global impact | The Economist

2018-02-14

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Online-dating apps Tinder and Bumble have generated 20bn matches around the world. On Valentine’s day we examine the effect of the online-dating revolution. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.st/2suT4Tc Whether you’re after guys with bushy beards, a partner who has a passion for classical music or you want to find love …

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review

2018-02-14

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2018-02-14

Personal income for December was better than expected at up 0.4% on the month and 4.11% year over year. Wages and salaries were up 0.5%. Unfortunately, that rate of rise is not even up to the lower end of the range we’ve seen in past expansions when 5% income growth was a precursor to recession. Still, it is, sadly, about average for this expansion.

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Emerging Markets: The Week Ahead, February 12

2018-02-12

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2018-02-12

EM FX ended Friday on a mixed note, as risk assets recovered a bit from broad-based selling pressures. Best EM performers on the week were ZAR, PHP, and CNY while the worst were COP, RUB, and ARS. Besides the risk-off impulses still reverberating through global markets, we think lower commodity prices are another headwind on EM.

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Charles Hugh Smith on Cyprus, Russia, the US, China and more

2018-02-11

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Subscribe to our newsletter at Episode 110: Charles Hugh Smith of talks to GoldMoney´s Alasdair Macleod. They talk about the. Subscribe to our newsletter at Episode 110: Charles Hugh Smith of talks to GoldMoney´s . Economic collapse and financial crisis is rising any moment. Getting informed about collapse. Bill Black: Standard Chartered admits to fraud, …

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Three Crazy Things We Now Accept as “Normal”

2018-02-11

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2018-02-11

Aggregate balance Sheet of Large Central Banks, 2000 - 2018
How can central banks "retrain" participants while maintaining their extreme policies of stimulus? Human habituate very easily to new circumstances, even extreme ones. What we accept as "normal" now may have been considered bizarre, extreme or unstable a few short years ago.

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China: CNY, Not Imports

2018-02-11

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2018-02-11

China Imports, Jan 2011 - 2018
In February 2013, the Chinese Golden Week fell late in the calendar. The year before, 2012, New Year was January 23rd, meaning that the entire Spring festival holiday was taken with the month of January. The following year, China’s New Year was placed on February 10, with the Golden Week taking up the entire middle month of February.

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Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2018-02-10

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2018-02-10

Reuters reported that China may loosen controls on outbound capital flows (QDLP). Samsung chief Lee was set free in an unexpected court reversal. Romania central bank hiked rates by 25 bp and raised its inflation forecasts for the next two years. South Africa President Zuma appears to be on the way out. Ecuador voters approved a referendum that reinstates term limits for the president. Venezuela central bank restarted FX auctions for the first time...

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Before You “Buy the Dip,” Look at This One Chart

2018-02-10

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2018-02-10

Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, Nov 2015 - Feb 2018
There's a place for fancy technical interpretations, but sometimes a basic chart tells us quite a lot. Here is a basic chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the DJIA. It displays basic information: price candlesticks, volume, the 50-week and 200-week moving averages, RSI (relative strength), MACD (moving average convergence-divergence), stochastics and the MACD histogram. These kinds of charts are free (in this case, from StockCharts.com).

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COT Blue: Interest In Open Interest

2018-02-10

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2018-02-10

US Treasury Bond Futures, Jan 1993 - 2018
For me, the defining characteristic of the late nineties wasn’t the dot-coms. Most people were exposed to the NASDAQ because, frankly, at the time there was no getting away from it. It had seeped into everything, transforming from a financial niche bleeding eventually into the entire worldwide culture. We all remember the grocery clerks who became day traders.

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The truth about the Winter Olympics | The Economist

2018-02-09

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As the Winter Olympics gets underway in Pyeongchang, South Korea, we examine some of the challenges facing the Games Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.st/2Ex1Dlc The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Those Games had 16 events. This year’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, in South Korea, will …

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Global Asset Allocation Update:

2018-02-09

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2018-02-09

Moderate Allocation
There is no change to the risk budget this month. For the moderate risk investor the allocation to bonds is 50%, risk assets 45% and cash 5%. Despite the selloff of the last week I don’t believe any portfolio action is warranted. While the overbought condition has largely been corrected now, the S&P 500 is far from the opposite condition, oversold. At the lows this morning, the S&P 500 was officially in correction territory, down 10% from the...

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Winter sports are facing many challenges. Can they survive? | The Economist

2018-02-08

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The 2018 Winter Olympics will see athletes from a record-breaking 92 countries compete in Pyeongchang, South Korea. But winter sports face a double threat, from climate change and ageing populations Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.st/2ErUCSr Winter sports are under threat. The multi-billion dollar industry – the livelihood for many mountain …

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US Imports: A Little Inflation For Yellen, A Little More Bastiat

2018-02-08

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2018-02-08

US Trade Balance, Jan 2014 - 2018
US imports rocketed higher once again in December, according to just-released estimates from the Census Bureau. Since August 2017, the US economy has been adding foreign goods at an impressive pace. Year-over-year (SA), imports are up just 10.4% (only 9% unadjusted) but 9.3% was in just those last four months. For most of 2017, imports were flat and even lower.

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Is the 9-Year Long Dead Cat Bounce Finally Ending?

2018-02-06

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2018-02-06

Dow Jones Futures, 2003 - 2021
Ignoring or downplaying these fundamental forces has greatly increased the fragility of the status quo. The term dead cat bounce is market lingo for a "recovery" after markets decline due to fundamental reversals. Markets tend to bounce back after sharp declines as participants (human and digital) who have been trained to "buy the dips" once again buy the decline, and the financial media rushes to reassure everyone that nothing has actually...

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