Category Archive: 5) Global Macro

Abenomics Succeeding? Don’t Believe the Mainstream Media, Just Energy and Import Prices Are Higher

  While the FT says: Abenomics is succeeding in bringing inflation back to Japan. The preferred core CPI measure, which excludes volatile food prices, rose a higher-than-anticipated 0.4 per cent in June (year-over-year), the highest reading since November 2008 and the first positive reading since April 2012. (The reading was flat in May). Overall inflation …

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Charles High Smith–Acquire New Skills Or Become A Mover 24.Jun.13

www.FinancialSurvivalNetwork.com presents Charles Hugh Smith and I discussed the increasing knowledge gap in America. If you aren’t in a position to make connecitons and network with people who can help you get ahead, then you must increase you skill set. In previous eras you could only acquire those skills in college. Now, however, you can …

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Democracies Like Bubbles, Totalitarian Regimes Hate Them

Totalitarian regimes, like China, fear bubbles and revolutions. Strangely, these regimes help to prevent asset bubbles, and the resulting unequal distribution of wealth between rich asset owners and the poor without assets. Today’s FT article shows how Chinese authorities fear the bubble and the revolution. China cash crunch deepens as PBOC withholds funding Short-term interbank …

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Will the China Bubble Bust? Pros and Cons

Economic experts and even rating agencies remain in dis-accord about the height of Chinese total debt and if this will continue to slow the Chinese economy.

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Has Abenomics Failed? Let us Go for Exchange Rate Targeting and Maintain Stability

Abenomics has failed It was doomed from the very beginning. You cannot create out of risk-averse Japanese risk-tolerating Americans. Public Japanese opinion puts enormous pressure on BoJ policy and on the government; the risks of rising  JGB yields are too high. Japanese hate volatility, the government cannot risk its funding. The emphasis on the word …

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The Cyclical and Exchange-Rate Induced Chinese Slowing

We believe in the Chinese economy, but it has just gone into a cyclical and a exchange-rate induced slowing. Any Cassandra views like recently by Charles Dumas, chief strategist of Lombard Research, but also some of Richard Koo’s earlier views, that there will be a burst of the Chinese housing bubble, are exaggerated. Markets Insight: …

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Abenomics: A USD/JPY Trade the Smart Money Banks on

Hedge funds worldwide have been counting on a rise and subsequent fall in USDJPY, and conditions remain intact for that to happen, though not to the extremes that many once expected.

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Don’t Worry, Inflation Will Come Back! It is already there; just not where you might live!

We name the main drivers of disinflation and manipulators of the CPI: Markets, central banks, investors, governments, statisticians, ageing, entrepreneurs, global competition, and last but least the euro.

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06-01-13 Macro Analytics Transitioning to INNOVATION Driven w/ Charles Hugh Smith



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Pictet Become “Secular Dollar Bulls” and Gold Bashers: Our Response

  Precisely at the moment when the dollar undergoes a secular bashing with a 6% loss against the yen and 3% against the euro, Pictet publish their “secular dollar bull era” video and recommend investors to avoid gold. “Secular movements” in currency markets are mostly driven by current account (CA) surpluses or deficits, while housing …

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Abenomics: Japanese Economy Would Have Recovered Even Without it

Response to Prof. Nick Rowe, Carleton University, Canada and Lars Christensen, the leading “Market Monetarist“.   Nick Rowe: Is the Bank of Japan trying to push down bond yields? Well, yes and no. Yes, it is fighting a battle to push down bond yields, but that battle is part of a wider war for economic recovery. And …

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How 40% Renmimbi appreciation vs Yen Caused a Deflationary Commodity Price Shock for World Economy

  Everybody is wondering why China is currently so weak, with a HSBC manufacturing in contractionary territory. No wonder, the main competitor in electronics and many more products,the Japanese yen has appreciated by nearly 40%. While China has to fight years-long appreciation of wages, the Japanese profit on years-long deflation and cheaper costs. At the …

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Jim O’Neill’s Bullish BRICS Outlook until 2020 and our Critics

Perfect charts by Goldman's Jim O'Neill that help to understand the former and future growth of different emerging, "growth markets", the BRICS. We criticise his partially over-optimistic views.

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The Great “American” Divide

Disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. While asset prices are inflated by continued Fed interventions, boosting profits widening the wealth gap between the top 20% of Americans and the rest.

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Japanese Investors Will Determine Fate of USD/JPY not U.S. Hedge Funds

By Stephen Jen (via Itau Global Connections). Bottom line Now that the Bank of Japan will be led by a team of super-doves, the mechanism through which a more aggressive BOJ could influence the yen is through capital flows. We have used the analogy of a two-stage rocket to describe how USDJPY could be propelled. … Continue reading »

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Global Purchasing Manager Indices

Manufacturing Purchasing Manager Indices (PMIs) are considered to be the leading and most important economic indicators.   August 2013 Update Emerging markets: Years of strong increases in wages combined with tapering fears have taken its toll: Higher costs and lower investment capital available. EM Companies have issues in coping with developed economies. Some of them …

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BoJ: Despite Quantitative and Qualitative Easing No Sign of FX Purchases

The Bank of Japan has introduced the expected “massive” quantitative and qualitative easing programme. “Quantitative” means increase of quantities of JGBs bought, “qualitative” the purchase of more ETFs, REIT and the loan support program.

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The “Sell in May, Come Back in October” Effect and the 19 Fortune-Tellers of the FOMC

The U.S. economy regularly improves between October and April, this year additionally fueled by "unlimited" quantitative easing, weaker gas prices and higher competitiveness thanks to a stronger Chinese yuan and weaker Asian economies.   Update 2013: The Case-Shiller index continued to climb in April 2013; it became clear that this year the "Sell in May" …

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03-19-13 Macro Analytics – PEAK JOBS – w/ Charles Hugh Smith

PEAK JOBS 23 Minutes, 25 Slides Gordon T Long and Charles Hugh Smith raise and debate seven key notions, that along with unsound money, are central to the understanding of the structural economic problems facing the globe today. The world is being brutally impacted by a slowing rate of growth in jobs and is now …

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