Tag Archive: France

Risk Appetites Didn’t Return from the Weekend

Overview: Investors' mood did not improve over the weekend, and the lack of risk appetites are rippling through the capital markets today.  Equities have tumbled, yields have backed off, and the dollar is well bid.  Hong Kong and Australia led the sell-off in the Asia Pacific region, off 3.3% and 2.1%, respectively. 

Read More »

FX Daily, June 21: Dollar Surge Stalls

Pressure on equities seen last week carried over into Asia and Europe today. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell for the fourth consecutive session, led by more than a 3% decline in the Nikkei. Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong bourses fell by more than 1%. European equities opened lower, but have turned higher.

Read More »

FX Daily, January 08: Can the Dollar Find Traction Even if the Employment Data Disappoint?

The global equity rally picked up this week as it closed in 2019. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained today and is up in nine of the past 10 sessions. It has fallen only in one week since the end of October. South Korea's Kospi led today's advance with a nearly 4% rally on the back of talks that were later played down between Hyundai and Apple. 

Read More »

FX Daily, September 3: Corrective Forces Maintain Grip

The US dollar is continuing to recover after hitting new lows earlier in the week. It is lower against all the major currencies and most of the emerging markets. A report in the Financial Times suggesting that there is a concern about the euro's recent strength at the ECB has added a bit more fuel to the move, and the euro, which had pushed above $1.20 earlier in the week, briefly traded below $1.18. 

Read More »

FX Daily, June 25: Contagion Growth and Calendar-Effect Saps Investor Enthusiasm

Given the huge run-up in risk assets this quarter, and the technical indicators warning of corrective forces, concerns over the new infections is pushing on an open door. The S&P 500 gapped lower yesterday and fell 2.6%, led by energy and airlines. The NASDAQ snapped an eight-day rally. Follow-through selling in the Asia Pacific region saw most markets fall at least 1%, with Korea and Australia seeing losses in excess of 2%.

Read More »

FX Daily, June 15: Unwind Continues

Overview: The swing in the pendulum of market sentiment toward fear from greed began last week and has carried over into today's activity.  Global equities are getting mauled.  In the Asia Pacific region, no market was spared as the Nikkei's 3.5% drop, and South Korea's 4.7% fall led the way.  In Europe, the Dow Jones Stoxx  600 is recovering from a more than two percent early loss,  as it drops for the fifth time in the past six sessions.

Read More »

The global economy doesn’t care about the ECB (nor any central bank)

The monetary mouse. After years of Mario Draghi claiming everything under the sun available with the help of QE and the like, Christine Lagarde came in to the job talking a much different approach. Suddenly, chastened, Europe’s central bank needed assistance. So much for “do whatever it takes.”They did it – and it didn’t take.Lagarde’s outreach was simply an act of admitting reality.

Read More »

European Data: Much More In Store For Number Four

It’s just Germany. It’s just industry. The excuses pile up as long as the downturn. Over across the Atlantic the situation has only now become truly serious. The European part of this globally synchronized downturn is already two years long and just recently is it becoming too much for the catcalls to ignore. Central bankers are trying their best to, obviously, but the numbers just aren’t stacking up their way.

Read More »

As the Data Comes In, 2019 Really Did End Badly

The coronavirus began during December, but in its early stages no one knew a thing about it. It wasn’t until January 1 that health authorities in China closed the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market after initially determining some wild animals sold there might have been the source of a pneumonia-like outbreak. On January 5, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued a statement saying it wasn’t SARS or MERS, and that the spreading disease would be...

Read More »

Lagarde Channels Past Self As To Japan Going Global

As France’s Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde objected strenuously to Ben Bernanke’s second act. Hinted at in August 2010, QE2 was finally unleashed in November to global condemnation. Where “trade wars” fill media pages today, “currency wars” did back then. The Americans were undertaking beggar-thy-neighbor policies to unfairly weaken the dollar.

Read More »

‘Paris’ Technocrats Face Another Drop

How quickly things change. Only a few days ago, a fuel tax in France was blamed for widespread rioting. Today, Emmanuel Macron’s government under siege threatens to break its fiscal budget. Having given up on gasoline and diesel, the French government now promises wage increases and tax cuts.

Read More »

Yellow vest protests cast cloud over Macron’s reform plans

Recent protests could have a negative impact on French growth, tax revenue and president Macron’s reform plans for his country and for Europe. French protests began on November 17 over hikes in fuel taxes, but have progressively broadened out into an expression of general anger with the French government about the cost of living and high taxes.

Read More »

49 Countries Have Violated Sanctions On North Korea

A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security has found that 49 countries violated sanctions on North Korea to varying degrees between March 2014 and September 2017. 13 governments including Cuba, Egypt, Iran and Syria were involved in military violations, which as Statista's Martin Armstrong notes, includes either receiving military training from North Korea or being involved in the import and export of military equipment.

Read More »

For The First Time Ever, The “1 percent” Own More Than Half The World’s Wealth: The Stunning Chart

Today Credit Suisse released its latest annual global wealth report, which traditionally lays out what has become the single biggest reason for the recent "anti-establishment" revulsion: an unprecedented concentration of wealth among a handful of people, as shown in Swiss bank's infamous global wealth pyramid, an arrangement which as observed by the "shocking" political backlash of the past year, suggests that the lower 'levels' of the pyramid are...

Read More »

“This May Be The End Of Europe As We Know It”: The Pension Storm Is Coming

I’ve written a lot about US public pension funds lately. Many of them are underfunded and will never be able to pay workers the promised benefits - at least without dumping a huge and unwelcome bill on taxpayers. And since taxpayers are generally voters, it’s not at all clear they will pay that bill. Readers outside the US might have felt safe reading those stories. There go those Americans again… However, if you live outside the US, your country...

Read More »

Dollar Surge Continues Ahead Of Jobs Report; Europe Dips As Catalan Fears Return

World stocks eased back from record highs and fell for the first time in eight days, as jitters about Catalonia’s independence push returned while bets on higher U.S. interest rates sent the dollar to its highest since mid August; S&P 500 futures were modestly in the red - as they have been every day this week before levitating to record highs - ahead of hurricane-distorted nonfarm payrolls data (full preview here). U.S. jobs report will also be...

Read More »

“This Is A Crisis Greater Than Any Government Can Handle”: The $400 Trillion Global Retirement Gap

Today we’ll continue to size up the bull market in governmental promises. As we do so, keep an old trader’s slogan in mind: “That which cannot go on forever, won’t.” Or we could say it differently: An unsustainable trend must eventually stop. Lately I have focused on the trend in US public pension funds, many of which are woefully underfunded and will never be able to pay workers the promised benefits, at least without dumping a huge and unwelcome...

Read More »

Here Are The Cities Of The World Where “The Rent Is Too Damn High”

In ancient times, like as far back as the 1990s, housing prices grew roughly inline with inflation rates because they were generally set by supply and demand forces determined by a market where buyers mostly just bought houses so they could live in them. Back in those ancient days, a more practical group of world citizens saw their homes as a place to raise a family rather that just another asset class that should be day traded to satisfy their...

Read More »

One-Tenth Of Global GDP Is Now Held In Offshore Tax Havens

Accurately measuring the scope of global wealth inequality is a notoriously difficult undertaking – a fact that was brought to light last year when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the Panama Papers, exposing clients of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Read More »

The Secret History Of The Banking Crisis

Accounts of the financial crisis leave out the story of the secretive deals between banks that kept the show on the road. How long can the system be propped up for? It is a decade since the first tremors of what would become the Great Financial Crisis began to convulse global markets. Across the world from China and South Korea, to Ukraine, Greece, Brexit Britain and Trump’s America it has shaken our economy, our society and latterly our politics.

Read More »