Tag Archive: newslettersent

Davos Staff May Sleep In Shipping Containers As Billionaires Swarm Resort

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

davos 2017
With January just around the corner, the world's billionaires, CEOs, politicians and oligarchs prepare to take their private planes to Davos, Switzerland for their annual convocation at the World Economic Forum, where they discuss such diverse topics as global warming due to greenhouse gases (which exempts Gulfstream jets) and the dangers of record wealth inequality (which exempts them), while snacking on $39 hot dogs and $50 Caesar salads.

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Fake News? It’s All Fake!

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

the addled cannibals
BALTIMORE – In January of this year, the Empire Herald reported that a “meth-addled couple” had eaten a homeless man in New York City’s Central Park. Later, Now8News reported that a can of cookie dough had “exploded in a woman’s vagina”; the woman was alleged to be shoplifting.

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Gold – Ready to Spring Another Surprise

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

Treasure Chest
Below is an update of a number of interesting data points related to the gold market. Whether “interesting” will become “meaningful” remains to be seen, as most of gold’s fundamental drivers aren’t yet bullishly aligned.

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A Tale of Two Housing Markets: Hot and Not So Hot

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

GDP Count
If we had to guess which areas will likely experience the smallest declines in prices and recover the soonest, which markets would you bet on?

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Switzerland UBS Consumption Indicator November: Subdued private consumption in 2017 despite solid November figures

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

Switzerland Private Consumption and UBS Consumption Indicator, YoY 2016
The UBS Consumption Indicator climbed to 1.43 points in November from 1.39. Another strong month in domestic tourism and the positive trend on the automobile market made the rise possible. Initially a solid start is to be expected for 2017, but momentum is expected to subside.

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Cool Video: Double Feature on Bloomberg

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

Marc Chandler
I am finishing the year like I began it, on Bloomberg Television, talking about the dollar and Fed policy. Bloomberg has made two clips of my interview available.

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FX Daily, December 28: Short Note for Holiday Markets

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

FX Performance, December 28 2016 Movers and Shakers
Economic data: Japan stands out with industrial production in Nov rising 1.5%, the most in five months. It was a little less than expected, but the expectations for Dec (2%) and Jan (2.2%) are constructive.

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Great Graphic: Real Wages

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

Real Wages 2007 - 2015
This Great Graphic caught my eye. It was tweeted by Ninja Economics. Her point was about immigration. German had much higher immigration than the UK, but also saw real wage increase of nearly 14% in the 2007-2015 period, while real wages in the UK fell nearly 10.5%.

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Grab-Bag of Resolutions for 2017

2016-12-28

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2016-12-28

Bitcoin One-Year Chart
Here's a grab-bag of resolutions with something for just about every persuasion. I resolve to never utter or write the word "Trump" in 2017. (Good luck with that...)

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Weekly Sight Deposits and Speculative Positions: SNB intervenes, while Speculators go Long CHF

2016-12-27

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2016-12-27

Euro/Swiss Franc FX Cross Rate
The Fed has hiked rates and with this fait accomplis speculators sold the news. They closed their short CHF and opened new CHF longs. The SNB, however, intervened again for 0.5 billion CHF.

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FX Daily, December 27: Markets Becalmed in Wait-and-See Mode

2016-12-27

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2016-12-27

Japan Construction Orders YoY, November 2016
As skeleton teams return to the trading desks in New York, the US dollar is largely where they left it at the end last week. Japanese markets were open yesterday, while UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Canadian markets are still closed today.

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Crisis of Meaning = Crisis of Work

2016-12-27

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2016-12-27

Real Average Hourly Wages
Allow me to connect two apparently unconnected dots. Dot #1: The last sugar plantation in Hawaii is closing down, ending more than a century of plantation life in the 50th state.

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When Assets (Such as Real Estate) Become Liabilities

2016-12-27

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2016-12-27

Equity in Real Estate
It will be the middle class that accepted the notion that "real estate is the foundation of family wealth" that will be stripmined by higher taxes on immobile assets such as real estate.

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Switzerland KOF Economic Barometer December: Unchanged

2016-12-26

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2016-12-26

KOF Economic Barometer December 2016
In December 2016, the KOF Economic Barometer stayed at its previous month’s reading of 102.2. The currently observable sideward trend, at a level slightly above the long-term average, indicates that the Swiss economy should grow at rates close to its long-term average in the near future.

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FX Outlook 2017: Politics to Eclipse Economics

2016-12-26

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2016-12-26

Economic Events: United Kingdom, Week December 26
Investors are familiar with a broad set of macroeconomic variables that often drive asset prices. Many are familiar with corporate balance sheets, price-earning ratios, free cash flow, Q-ratio, and the like.

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Weekly Speculative Positions: After Fed Rate Hike, Speculators Close their Short CHF and Open Long CHF

2016-12-26

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2016-12-26

speculative position 20161226
The expiry of the December currency futures may spurred more than normal speculative position adjusting. The out-sized 27.9k contract jump in the speculative gross long Swiss franc futures position is a prime example.

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FX Weekly Review, December 19 – December 23: Assessment of the Dollar’s Technical Condition

2016-12-26

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2016-12-26

Trade-weighted index Swiss Franc, December 23
The small adjustment to Fed’s anticipated path for the Fed funds target helped lift the US dollar to its highest level against the euro since 2003, and to ten-month highs against the Japanese yen. The graph shows that the dollar has improved by 25% against the euro, but only by 10% against CHF over the last 3 years.

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Emerging Market Preview for the Week Ahead

2016-12-26

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2016-12-26

EM gained some limited traction as last week ended. However, renewed concerns about China could limit this bounce as President Xi signaled the possibility that growth could fall below the government’s 6.5% target.

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How to Invest in the New World Order

2016-12-26

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2016-12-26

In our latest Toward a New World Order, Part III we ended by promising to look closer at investment implications from the political and economic shift we currently find ourselves in; and that story must begin with the dollar.

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Credit Suisse Settles With DOJ For $5.3 Billion; Will Pay $2.5 Billion Civil Penalty

2016-12-25

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2016-12-25

Credit Suisse
Shortly after last night's news that Deutsche Bank had settled with the DOJ for $7.2 billion, of which it would pay $3.1 billion in a civil penalty, far lower than the $14 billion number initially speculated (the stock popped as much as 4% before settling just over 2% higher currently), Credit Suisse likewise closed the books on its pre-crisis RMBS fraud when the largest Swiss bank agreed to pay $5.28 billion to resolve a U.S.

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