Category Archive: 5) Global Macro

Filter archive by: Show All Show only Articles Show only Videos

Emerging Markets: Week Ahead Preview

2017-11-06

by

2017-11-06

EM FX ended the week under pressure. News of the Venezuela debt restructuring was digested well, but sentiment went south as the day wore on. Weakness was concentrated in the weakest links TRY, BRL, RUB, and ZAR, while MXN and COP were dragged along for the ride. We see EM selling pressures persisting into 2018.

Read More »

Global Asset Allocation Update

2017-11-05

by

2017-11-05

Moderate Allocation
The risk budget this month shifts slightly as we add cash to the portfolio. For the moderate risk investor the allocation to bonds is unchanged at 50%, risk assets are reduced to 45% and cash is raised to 5%. The changes this month are modest and may prove temporary but I felt a move to reduce risk was prudent given signs of exuberance – rational, irrational or otherwise.

Read More »

What’s Driving Social Discord: Russian Social Media Meddling or Soaring Wealth/Power Inequality?

2017-11-05

by

2017-11-05

Boris Natasha
The nation's elites are desperate to misdirect us from the financial and power dividethat has enriched and empowered them at the expense of the unprotected many. There are two competing explanatory narratives battling for mind-share in the U.S.: 1. The nation's social discord is the direct result of Russian social media meddling-- what I call the Boris and Natasha Narrative of evil Russian masterminds controlling a vast conspiracy of social media...

Read More »

Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2017-11-04

by

2017-11-04

Russia’s Finance Ministry announced plans to increase its dollar. purchases in November. Bahrain has reportedly asked its Gulf allies for financial assistance. S&P upgraded Argentina a notch to B+ with stable outlook. Brazil raised BRL6.15 bln ($1.9 bln) by auctioning off the rights to explore 6 of the 8 deep-water oil blocks. Venezuela bowed to the inevitable, announcing that it would have to restructure its debt.

Read More »

What the Kennedy Assassination Records Reveal: Uncontrollable Incompetence

2017-11-04

by

2017-11-04

Propaganda Ministry 2017
One way to interpret the intelligence community's reluctance to let all the Kennedy assassination archives become public is that the archives contain evidence of a "smoking gun": that is, evidence that the intelligence agencies of the United States of America were complicit in the assassination of the President.

Read More »

Bonds And Soft Chinese Data

2017-11-04

by

2017-11-04

China Treasury Bonds
Back in June, China’s federal bond yield curve inverted. Ahead of mid-year bank checks, short-term govvies sold off as longer bonds continued to be bought. It was for some a rotation, for others a reflection of money rates threatening to spiral out of control. On June 19, for example, the 6-month federal security yielded 3.87% compared to a yield of 3.525% for the 10-year.

Read More »

The (Economic) Difference Between Stocks and Bonds

2017-11-04

by

2017-11-04

US Disposable Personal Income, Jan 1985 - 2017
Real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) rose 0.6% in September 2017 above August. That was the largest monthly increase (SAAR) in almost three years. Given that Real PCE declined month-over-month in August, it is reasonable to assume hurricane effects for both. Across the two months, Real PCE rose by a far more modest 0.5% total, or an annual rate of just 3.4%, only slightly greater the prevailing average.

Read More »

Strong Growth? Q3 GDP Only Shows How Weak 2017 Has Been

2017-11-03

by

2017-11-03

US Gross Domestic Product, April 2011 - March 2017
Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson also had a long career as a manager after his playing days were done. He once said in that latter capacity that you have to have a short memory as a closer. Simple wisdom where it’s true, all that matters for that style of pitching is the very next out. You can forget about what just happened so as to give your full energy and concentration to the batter at the plate.

Read More »

The Balfour Declaration’s impact, 100 years on | The Economist

2017-11-03

by

The Balfour Declaration was penned 100 years ago, but its legacy still resonates in the Middle East today. How did a letter, only 67-words long, ignite 100 years of conflict? Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 100 years ago this week Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary, penned a letter that …

Read More »

Observations on Wealth-Income Inequality (from Federal Reserve Reports)

2017-11-03

by

2017-11-03

Percent of Families with business equity, 1989 - 2016
There's a profound difference between assets that produce no income and those that produce net income. To those of us nutty enough to pore over dozens of pages of data on wealth and income in the U.S., the Federal Reserve's quarterly Z.1 reports and annual Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) are treasure troves, as are I.R.S. tax and income reports.

Read More »

Where To Invest When (Almost) Everything’s in a Bubble

2017-11-02

by

2017-11-02

S&P 500 and US Home Price Index, 1980 - 2017
Many things that are scarce and thus valuable cannot be bought on the global marketplace. Now that almost every asset class is in a bubble, the question of where to invest one's capital has become particularly vexing. The ashes of wealth consumed by the 2008-09 Global Financial Meltdown are still warm, at least to those who never recovered, and so buying assets at nosebleed valuations in the hopes of earning another 5% aren't very compelling to...

Read More »

12 08 14 – MACRO ANALYTICS – Oil-Drenched Black Swan w/Charles Hugh Smith

2017-11-02

by

seldf

Read More »

Facial recognition technology will change the way we live | The Economist

2017-11-01

by

Facial recognition technology will transform the way we live in 2018. Machines that can read and recognise our faces will go mainstream, opening up exciting possibilities and posing new dangers Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 In 2018 machines that can read your face will go mainstream, changing the way we …

Read More »

What Could Pop The Everything Bubble?

2017-11-01

by

2017-11-01

Selected Consumer Goods and Services Price Changes, 1996 - 2016
As central bank policies are increasingly fingered by the mainstream as the source of soaring wealth-income inequality, policies supporting credit/asset bubbles will either be limited or cut off, and at that point all the credit/asset bubbles will pop.

Read More »

Urbanisation and the rise of the megacity | The Economist

2017-10-31

by

Urbanisation is happening faster today than at any time in history. By 2030 nearly 9% of the global population will live in so-called megacities—cities with more than 10m inhabitants. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 In 1950 New York and Tokyo were the only so called megacities; cities with more than …

Read More »

Transforming cities with technology | The Economist

2017-10-31

by

Cities are growing faster than at any time in history, straining services and infrastructure. Technology-driven advances are at the forefront of solving this age-old problem Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 By 2050, two thirds of the world’s population will live in cities. Urbanisation is happening faster than at any time …

Read More »

Subject To Gradation

2017-10-31

by

2017-10-31

US Durable Goods Shipments, Jan 2010 - Jul 2017
Economic growth is subject to gradation. There is almost no purpose in making such a declaration, for anyone with common sense knows intuitively that there is a difference between robust growth and just positive numbers. Yet, the biggest mistake economists and policymakers made in 2014 was to forget that differences exist between even statistics all residing on the plus side.

Read More »

Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2017-10-30

by

2017-10-30

EM FX gained some limited traction Friday but still capped off another awful week. So far this quarter, the worst EM performers are TRY (-6%), MXN (-5%), ZAR (-4%), COP, and BRL (both -2.5%). We expect these currencies to remain under pressure as political concerns are unlikely to dissipate anytime soon.

Read More »

Stagnation Nation: Middle Class Wealth Is Locked Up in Housing and Retirement Funds

2017-10-30

by

2017-10-30

Percent of Total Assets and Liabilities
The majority of middle class wealth is locked up in unproductive assets or assets that only become available upon retirement or death. One of my points in Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin was to highlight how few families had the financial wherewithal to invest in bitcoin or an alternative hedge such as precious metals.

Read More »

An Unexpected (And Rotten) Branch of the Maestro’s Legacy

2017-10-29

by

2017-10-29

China Fixed Asset Investment, March 1998 - Sep 2017
The most significant part of China’s 19th Party Congress ended in the usual anticlimactic fashion. These events are for show, not debate. Like any good trial lawyer will tell you, you never ask a question in court that you don’t already know the answer to. For China’s Communists, that meant nominating Xi Jinping’s name to be written into the Communist constitution with the votes already tallied.

Read More »