Tag Archive: Japan

Negative and the War On Cash, Part 2: “Closing The Escape Routes”

2016-09-08

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2016-09-08

History teaches us that central authorities dislike escape routes, at least for the majority, and are therefore prone to closing them, so that control of a limited money supply can remain in the hands of the very few. In the 1930s, gold was the escape route, so gold was confiscated. As Alan Greenspan wrote in 1966:

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Negative Rates and The War On Cash, Part 1: “There Is Nowhere To Go But Down”

2016-09-04

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2016-09-04

As momentum builds in the developing deflationary spiral, we are seeing increasingly desperate measures to keep the global credit ponzi scheme from its inevitable conclusion. Credit bubbles are dynamic — they must grow continually or implode — hence they require ever more money to be lent into existence.

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‘Last Economist Standing’ John Taylor Urges “Less Weird Policy” At Jackson Hole

2016-08-25

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2016-08-25

I attended the first monetary-policy conference there in 1982, and I may be the only person to attend both the 1st and the 35th. I know the Tetons will still be there, but virtually everything else will be different. As the Wall Street Journal front page headline screamed out on Monday, central bank Stimulus Efforts Get Weirder. I’m looking forward to it.

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The World’s Dominant Gold Refineries

2016-08-19

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2016-08-19

There are many precious metals refineries throughout the world, some local to their domestic markets, and some international, even global in scale. Many but by no means all of these refineries are on the Good Delivery Lists of gold and/or silver.

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Spectacular Chinese Gold Demand Fully Denied By GFMS And Mainstream Media

2016-08-18

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2016-08-18

In the Gold Survey 2016 report by GFMS that covers the global gold market for calendar year 2015 Chinese gold consumption was assessed at 867 tonnes. As Chinese wholesale demand, measured by withdrawals from Shanghai Gold Exchange designated vaults, accounted for 2,596 tonnes in 2015 the difference reached an extraordinary peak for the year.

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Stupid is What Stupid Does – Secular Stagnation Redux

2016-08-17

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2016-08-17

Which country, the United States or Japan, have had the fastest GDP growth rate since the financial crisis? Due to Japan’s bad reputation as a stagnant, debt ridden, central bank dependent, demographic basket case the question appears superfluous. The answer seemed so obvious to us that we haven’t really bothered looking into it until one day we started thinking about the demographic situation in the two countries.

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Negative Consumer Financing Rates in Germany, Soon More Negative in Switzerland?

2016-08-07

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2016-08-07

Things are increasingly upside down in the brave new centrally planned world: thanks to negative deposit rates central banks have put an explicit cost on saving, while in various instances, such as taking out a mortgage in Denmark and the Netherlands, the bank actually pays the borrower, thus rewarding living beyond one's means.

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No Big Thoughts, but Several Smaller Observations

2016-08-01

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2016-08-01

Notable that as the CRB Index moves lower, MSCI emerging market equities have done well. European banks are retreating after the stress test results. Tokyo elected its first women governor as this seem to be in part a sign of protest against Abe.

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Richard Koo: If Helicopter Money Succeeds, It Will Lead To 1,500 percent Inflation

2016-07-28

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2016-07-28

After today's uneventful Fed announcement, all eyes turn to the BOJ where many anticipate some form of "helicopter money" is about to be unveiled in Japan by the world's most experimental central bank. However, as Nomura's Richard Koo warns, central banks may get much more than they bargained for, because helicopter money "probably marks the end of the road for believers in the omnipotence of monetary policy who have continued to press for further...

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The World’s Central Banks Are Making A Big Mistake

2016-07-20

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2016-07-20

While everyone was talking about Brexit last month, the Bank for International Settlements released its 86th annual report. Based in Basel, Switzerland, the BIS functions as a master hub for all the world’s central banks. It settles transactions among central banks and other international organizations. It doesn’t serve private individuals, businesses, or national governments.

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FX Weekly Preview: EMU Returns to Center Stage in the Week Ahead

2016-07-17

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2016-07-17

Key event in Europe is not on many calendars--it is a ruling by the European Court of Justice. UK government and Tory Party stabilizing, leaving the Labour Party in disarray. US economy appears to have accelerated into the end of Q2. BOJ's meeting at the end of the month.

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“It’s Prohibited By Law” – A Problem Emerges For Japan’s “Helicopter Money” Plans

2016-07-14

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2016-07-14

Over the past four days, risk assets have been on a tear, led by the collapsing Yen and soaring Nikkei, as the market has digested daily news that - as we predicted last week - Bernanke has been urging Japan to become the first developed country to unleash the monetary helicopter, in which the central banks directly funds government fiscal spending, most recently with an overnight report that Bernanke has pushed Abe and Kuroda to sell perpetual...

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Central Bank Wonderland is Complete and Now Open for Business — The Epocalypse Has Fully Begun

2016-07-14

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2016-07-14

Summer vacation is here, and the whole global family has arrived at Central-Bank Wonderland, the upside-down, inside-out world that banksters and their puppet politicians call “recovery.” Everyone is talking about it as wizened traders puzzle over how stocks and bonds soared, hand-in-hand, in face of the following list of economic thrills:

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Germany Sells First Ever Negative-Yielding 10Y Treasury, Corporate Bonds

2016-07-14

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2016-07-14

Overnight, we previewed what was about to be a historic for the eurozone bond auction, when this morning Germany sold its first ever 10Y bonds with a zero coupon.

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Going Dutch? Netherlands Joins The 10Y NIRP Club

2016-07-08

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2016-07-08

For the first time in Dutch history, 10Y government bond yields have turned negative (-0.001% intraday) closing at 0.00%... Joining Switzerland, Japan, Germany, and Denmark... Pushing Global NIRP bonds over the $13 trillion!

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Fearing Confiscation, Japanese Savers Rush To Buy Gold And Store It In Switzerland

2016-07-08

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2016-07-08

Japan has pushed further away from being the nation that embraces "Krugman Era" economics and deeper into the new "Bernanke Era" economics of helicopter money. As a result Japan's citizens have been on a blitz to save what little purchasing power they still possess, before hyperinflation finally arrives.

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ETF Securities Reports Biggest One-Day Gold Inflow Since Financial Crisis

2016-07-04

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2016-07-04

It never ceases to amaze how vastly different the investment styles of gold paper vs physical traders are: while we have documented previously how the latter tend to buy progressively more the lower the price (as traditional "buy low, buy more lower" investing would suggest), "investors" in gold paper-derivatives such as ETFs and ETPs are quite the opposite: in fact, they rarely buy until someone else is buying and generating momentum.

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FX Daily, July 04: Four Things that Happened on the Anniversary of the Original Brexit

2016-07-04

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2016-07-04

Inflation expectations fall in Japan. UK construction PMI fell sharply before Brexit. The Australian dollar recovers from the dip as investors await more results. It is not clear that Brexit has sparked a wave of nationalism or anti-EU sentiment.

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BofA: To Save Markets Central Banks Just Made Inequality And Populism Even Worse

2016-06-29

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2016-06-29

There is a large dose of irony to the post-Brexit market response: while on one hand stocks have soared and as of today the S&P500 has already recouped more than half its post-Brexit losses (the SPX sank 5.7% peak-to-trough since the referendum and has since bounced 3.5%) an even sharper reaction has been observed in bonds.

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There Is Now A Staggering $11.7 Trillion In Negative Yielding Debt

2016-06-29

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2016-06-29

It was not even a month ago when we last looked at the total amount of negative yielding debt around the globe, and were shocked to find that according to Fitch, for the first time in history (obviously), there was over $10 trillion in negative yielding debt. Fast forward 4 weeks later, and the grand total is now $1.3 trillion higher, or $11.7 trillion.

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