Tag Archive: newslettersent

11 on the Nutty Scale – Banks are Paying Interest to Mortgage Borrowers

2016-04-18

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2016-04-18

  Wicked Don Giovanni GUALFIN, Argentina – Tuesday evening, we went to the main opera house in Buenos Aires, the Teatro Colón, to see Mozart’s Don Giovanni. On our way over, our taxi driver told us that Luciano Pavarotti rated it as the second best o...

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Monetary Metals Report: Gold – Silver Opposites

2016-04-18

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2016-04-18

  What Differentiates Gold from Silver? Well that was an interesting week. Gold went down over thirty bucks and silver went up over thirty cents. How much longer can this silver rally continue in the face of gold’s non-participation? Will speculators...

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FX Daily, April 18: Doha Failure Sets Tone

2016-04-18

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2016-04-18

Oil producers failed to reach an agreement yesterday at the meeting in Doha.  That is the main spur to today’s activity.  It is not that the outcome was a surprise.  One newswire poll found around half of the respondents thought an agreement was elusive.   Although not oil experts by any stretch, we too thought political … Continue reading...

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Beware of Particularly Challenging Week Ahead

2016-04-17

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2016-04-17

It is never easy, but the week ahead may be particularly difficult for market participants. It will first have to respond to weekend developments.   First, the front page of the NY Times on Saturday was a report that the Saudi Arabia warned the US if a bill making its way through Congress that would allow it (Saudi … Continue reading...

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Weekly Speculative Positions: Yen Speculators Continue to Press

2016-04-16

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2016-04-16

Disclosure

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FX Weekly: The Dollar’s Technical Condition Remains Vulnerable

2016-04-16

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2016-04-16

The US dollar turned in a mixed performance last week, which given the softer than expected inflation, retail sales data, and industrial output figures, coupled with the poor technical backdrop, could be a signal that its decline in recent months has run its course.    The dollar-bloc continued its advance, led by the Australian dollar’s nearly …

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Double Whammy Economics

2016-04-16

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2016-04-16

What’s up with U.S. consumers? They seem to have come to their senses at the worst possible time. They can no longer be counted on to push economic growth up and to the right. Specifically, they’re not spending money on stuff.A little public service on etymology: “Double whammy” was reportedly first used in a 1941 Oakland Tribune article related to boxing. It means a devastating blow, setback or catastrophe. In today’s economy, it often means...

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SDR Does Not Stand for Secret Dollar Replacement

2016-04-15

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2016-04-15

At the IMF/World Bank meetings this week, Chinese officials are again pushing for greater use of the IMF's unit of account, Special Drawing Rights.   It is China's turn as the rotating host of the G20, which gives it greater influence over its ag...

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Weekly Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2016-04-15

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2016-04-15

Bank Indonesia will use the 7-day reverse repo rate as its new benchmark policy rate The ruling party in South Korea unexpectedly lost parliamentary elections The Monetary Authority of Singapore eased monetary policy to recession settings Turkey has nominated its next central bank chief The Brazilian special lower house committee voted 38-27 in favor of …

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Why All Central Planning Is Doomed to Fail

2016-04-15

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2016-04-15

We’re still thinking about how so many smart people came to believe things that aren’t true. Krugman, Stiglitz, Friedman, Summers, Bernanke, Yellen – all seem to have a simpleton’s view of how the world works.

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Circulus in probando

2016-04-15

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2016-04-15

In the latest semi-annual Keynesian incantation spewed out by the world’s best pseudo-scientists, we learn that growth has been too slow for too long and that in itself is the cause of slow growth. First, they promote debt-funded consumption because ...

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FX Daily, 04/15: Better Chinese Data Fails to Deter Pre-Weekend Profit-Taking

2016-04-15

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2016-04-15

China’s slew of economic data lends credence to ideas that the world’s second-largest economy may be stabilizing.  However, the data failed to have a wider impact on the global capital markets, including supporting Chinese equities.  In fact,  the seven-day advance in the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index was snapped with a fractional loss today. European shares are …

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BOE and Brexit

2016-04-14

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2016-04-14

No one can feign surprise that the Bank of England kept policy steady.  Nor was the 9-0 vote truly surprising, though there had been some speculation of a couple of dovish dissents.  Nevertheless, there are two important takeaways for investors. First, the BOE recognized what many in the market have already accepted; namely that the … Continue...

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A Take On How Negative Interest Rates Hurt Banks That You Will Not See Anywhere Else

2016-04-14

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2016-04-14

The Bank of Japan and the ECB are assisting me in teaching the world's savers, banking clients and corporations about the benefits of blockchain-based finance for the masses. How? Today, the Wall Street Journal published "Negative Rates: How One Swis...

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Great Graphic:Is that a Head and Shoulders Top in Gold?

2016-04-14

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2016-04-14

This Great Graphic, created on Bloomberg shows the price of gold over the last six months.  The price peaked a month ago near $1285.  It seems a distribution top is being formed.   Specifically, it looks like a potential head and shoulders to...

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FX Daily, 04/14: Greenback Steadies Against Majors, but Firmer vs EM After MAS Surprise

2016-04-14

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2016-04-14

After initially extending its recent recovery gains against the major currencies, the US dollar began consolidating in the European morning.  An unexpected shift by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, replacing a modest and gradual currency appr...

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Who Lends to the Fed?

This leads to our present question. To speak of borrowing and a ready market in which the Fed can borrow, means there is a lender. Who is the lender to the Fed?

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Swiss Producer and Import Price Index in March 2016: The Producer and Import Price Index remains stable overall

2016-04-14

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2016-04-14

The Producer and Import Price Index remained unchanged in March 2016 compared with the previous month at 99.0 points (base December 2015 = 100). Whereas the Producer Price Index increased by 0.1%, the Import Price Index remained unchanged on average. Compared with March 2015, the price level of the whole range of domestic and imported products fell by 4.7%. These are the findings of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

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Expectation for Doha may be Inflated

2016-04-14

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2016-04-14

The weekend meeting between many OPEC and non-OPEC producers has helped spur the recent gains in the price of oil.  We are concerned that market may be getting ahead of itself. First, the freeze in output that had previously been agreed by Russia, Saudi Arabia, and a few other countries was conditional on participation by … Continue reading...

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China – A Reversal of Urbanization?

2016-04-13

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2016-04-13

  Economic and Demographic Changes We have discussed China’s debt and malinvestment problems in these pages extensively in the past (most recently we have looked at various efforts to keep the yuan propped up). In a way, China is like the proverbial ...

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