Tag Archive: newsletter

Monthly Macro Chart Review – April 2019 (VIDEO)

2019-04-13

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2019-04-13

Alhambra CEO Joe Calhoun discusses the charts from the past month and what they indicate.

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FX Daily, April 12: Euro Bid Above $1.13 for the First Time this Month

2019-04-12

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2019-04-12

Overview:  The consolidative week in the capital markets is drawing to a close.  Equity markets are narrowly mixed.  In Asia, most indices outside of the greater China (China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) edged higher, leaving the MSCI Asia Pacific Index slightly lower on the week.  The MSCI Emerging Markets Index snapped a ten-day rally yesterday and is little changed so far today. 

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Medical funding from big pharma continues apace

2019-04-12

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2019-04-12

An investigative report by a group of Swiss newspapers has revealed the extent to which pharmaceutical companies are funding hospitals, doctors, and medical centres in the country. CHF458 million ($456.5 million): this was the amount paid by the 60 pharma companies based in Switzerland to various arms of the medical profession between 2015 and 2017, according to a report by the Beobachter, Handelszeitung, Blick, and Le Temps newspapers.

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Limited room for Swiss franc depreciation

2019-04-12

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2019-04-12

Swiss Goods & Services, Investment and Reserve Assets
Even should global economic momentum stabilise in the coming months and political risks abate, the franc still has important structural underpinnings.The Swiss franc has been supported by a structural current account surplus and by reduced investment flows out of Switzerland since the 2008 financial crisis. In addition, the decline in global yields since the Fed’s dovish shift early this year has rendered interest rate differentials less...

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Why 2011

2019-04-12

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2019-04-12

TIC - US Banking Data 1979-2019
The eurodollar era saw not one but two credit bubbles. The first has been studied to death, though almost always getting it wrong. The Great Financial Crisis has been laid at the doorstep of subprime, a bunch of greedy Wall Street bankers insufficiently regulated to have not known any better. That was just a symptom of the first. The housing bubble itself was more than housing.

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Debt and Profit in Russell 2000 Firms

2019-04-12

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2019-04-12

U.S. small-cap debt builds up
This week, the Supply and Demand Report featured a graph of debt vs profitability in the Russell 2000. Here’s the graph again: This graph shows a theme that we, and practically no one else(!) have been discussing for years. It is the diminishing marginal utility of debt. In this case, more and more debt is required to add what looks like less and less profit (we don’t have the raw data, only the graphic).

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More Swiss bankruptcies in 2018 than ever before

2019-04-11

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2019-04-11

Last year saw a record number of bankruptcy procedures opened in Switzerland, with almost 14,000 cases involving bust businesses and individuals. The record numbers, released on Thursday by the Federal Statistical Office, mark a 5.4% increase on 2017 and translate to overall financial losses of some CHF2 billion ($2 billion).

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FX Daily, April 11: Market Yawns at Latest Brexit Extension

2019-04-11

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2019-04-11

The S&P 500 closed higher yesterday for the ninth session in the past ten, but the coattails are short and global equities are trading with a heavier bias today. A firm CPI reading in China took a toll local shares with the Shanghai Composite, shedding 1.6%, the most in more than two weeks. European bourses are mostly in the red.

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Getting ready for tiering

2019-04-11

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2019-04-11

Aggregate Cost of Negative Policy Rates for Euro Area Banks, 2014-2019
ECB officials have hinted at policy measures aimed at reducing the cost of negative rates for the banking sector, including a tiered system of bank reserves.Although back in 2016 the European Central Bank (ECB) ruled out tiering of bank reserves to mitigate the side effects of negative rates, the situation has since changed, and it could be implemented eventually if policy rates were to remain negative into 2020.

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Gold & Basel 3: A Revolution That Once Again No One Noticed

2019-04-11

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2019-04-11

Real revolutions are taking place not on squares, but in the quiet of offices, and that’s why nobody noticed the world revolution that took place on March 29th 2019. Only a small wave passed across the periphery of the information field, and the momentum faded away because the situation was described in terms unclear to the masses.

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Here’s What It’s Like To Be a Bear in a Rigged Market

2019-04-11

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2019-04-11

Central bankers and media handlers must be laughing at how easy it is to slaughter the Bears and doubters with another fake-news round of trade-deal rumors and another Fed parrot being prompted to repeat some dovish mumbo-jumbo. It's not just tough being a Bear in a market rigged by trade deal rumors, Federal Reserve dovishness, a tsunami of Chinese liquidity and $270 billion in stock buy-backs in the first quarter--it's impossible. 

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FX Daily, April 10: Be Careful What You Wish For

2019-04-10

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2019-04-10

There were only a few formal disputes under NAFTA 1.0. It says more about the adjudication process than the underlying issues. It was not binding. The Democrats want stronger enforcement provisions in what the NAFTA 2.0. It is understandable. Still, without opening up the agreement, which had been already agreed to by three heads of state, it is difficult to see how this will happen.

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Towards A Globalist Utopia: “Negative Rates Are Coming, Whether You Like It Or Not”

2019-04-10

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2019-04-10

There is nothing that a human mind can’t conceive. It can shoot for the stars or dive in the ocean which twinkles in the shadows of stars and ascend back with sparkling mind bearing uncanny ambition only to float contended. Today, we live in fear of losing wealth, we worry what economic consequences would do to our cash, we look through a microscope and scrutinize every word, every policy, every regulation or find something to put above ‘every’ and...

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Ailing fintech Monetas goes into liquidation again

2019-04-10

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2019-04-10

Bankruptcy proceedings have been reignited against troubled Swiss digital payments company Monetas more than a year after the enterprise hit serious financial difficulties. Efforts to find a new buyer appear to have come to nothing as the firm goes into liquidation.

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Transport costs have increased by 4 percent within five years

2019-04-10

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2019-04-10

Costs of transport by transport mode, 2015
In 2015, transport in Switzerland generated economic costs of around CHF 90 billion. This was 4% more than in 2010. Aviation (+14%) and rail transport (+12%) recorded the largest increases. In comparison, costs for motorised road transport remained rather stable (+2%) and accounted for four fifths of the total transport costs. None of the various transport user groups fully funded the generated costs themselves.

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West Virginia Joins Growing Sound Money Movement – Six Other States Now Weighing Their Own Bills to End Taxes on Gold & Silver

2019-04-10

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2019-04-10

Before the ink could even dry on West Virginia Governor Jim Justice’s signature on a repeal of sales taxation on gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion and coins, legislators in Wisconsin and Maine introduced similar measures in their own states.

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Trade Deal Follies: The U.S. Has Embraced the World’s Worst Negotiating Tactics

2019-04-10

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2019-04-10

The world's worst negotiating strategy is to make a crazy tulip-bubble stock market rally dependent on a trade deal that harms the interests of the U.S. The world's worst negotiating tactics, the equivalent of handing the other side a loaded gun while waving a squirt gun around, are: 1. Declare a de facto political deadline for a deal. Constantly tweet that a deal is imminent. 

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What Causes Loss of Purchasing Power, Report 7 Apr

2019-04-09

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2019-04-09

U.S. small-cap debt builds up, 2002-2019
We have written much about the notion of inflation. We don’t want to rehash our many previous points, but to look at the idea of purchasing power from a new angle. Purchasing power is assumed to be intrinsic to the currency. We have said that the problem with the word inflation is that it treats two different phenomena as if they are the same.

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FX Daily, April 09: Is the USMCA Dead?

2019-04-09

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2019-04-09

The heads of state may have agreed on the modernization of NAFTA, but the necessary legislative approval may not be forthcoming this year. The US legislative process has been complicated by the fact that the Democrats secured a majority in the House of Representatives last year.

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Pound to Swiss Franc forecast: Will the GBP/CHF rate drop below 1.30?

2019-04-09

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2019-04-09

There is a very strong likelihood that the pound to Swiss franc exchange rate might slip should Theresa May find herself in trickier waters ahead as she attempts to negotiate an extension on the Brexit deadline this week. Pound to Swiss franc exchange rates could easily slip below 1.30, particularly since the Franc is a safe haven currency that can strengthen in times of economic uncertainty.

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