Tag Archive: stock market

The ‘Fed Put’ – Gone Until There’s Blood in the Streets

2022-01-30

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2022-01-30

The ‘Fed put’ – gone until there’s blood in the streets Well, it’s happening.  Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies are sharply down, along with equity markets in many advanced economies. And the Federal Reserve (the U.S. Central Bank) statement and press conference on Wednesday didn’t indicate any backing down from raising interest rates, maybe as soon as the March meeting. The Fed’s stance pivot from ‘the economy needs...

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Weekly Market Pulse: Fear Makes A Comeback

2022-01-24

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2022-01-24

Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline.

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Gold Price News: Gold Down 1% in Wake of More Hawkish Federal Reserve Meeting Minutes

2022-01-09

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2022-01-09

Gold price fell to $1,808 an ounce in the wake of the release of the minutes of the December Federal Reserve meeting, having hit an intra-day high of $1,829. Silver price fell to $22.72 an ounce from an intra-day high of $23.26.

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Gold Leads the Way for Silver

2021-09-10

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2021-09-10

Last week we wrote about the gold to silver ratio. Our points were that it measures the price of one metal against the other, just as we use the dollars per ounce to measure daily metals prices, and just as we use ounces per Corvette to measure purchasing power preservation.

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The far-reaching implications of the amateur trading wave

2021-07-27

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2021-07-27

2020 certainly was a year of a lot of “firsts”, most them extremely destructive to the economy, to our societies and to our everyday lives. However, there were a few positive developments too, among them being the fact that it was the year that ordinary people discovered and entered financial markets. 

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Weekly Market Pulse: Buy The Dip, If You Can

2021-07-26

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2021-07-26

If you were waiting for a correction in stock prices to put some money to work, you got your chance last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly 1000 points at the low Monday and closed down 725, a loss of a little over 2%. The S&P 500 did a little better but closed down 1.5%.

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Motte and Bailey Fallacy, Report 13 Oct

2019-10-15

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2019-10-15

Gold and Silver Prices
This week, we will delve into something really abstract. Not like monetary economics, which is so simple even a caveman can do it. We refer to a clever rhetorical trick. It’s when someone makes a broad and important assertion, in very general terms. But when challenged, the assertion is switched for one that is entirely uncontroversial but also narrow and unimportant.

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The Transitory Story, I Repeat, The Transitory Story

2019-05-24

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2019-05-24

Money Markets Equivalents, 2017-2019
Understand what the word “transitory” truly means in this context. It is no different than Ben Bernanke saying, essentially, subprime is contained. To the Fed Chairman in early 2007, this one little corner of the mortgage market in an otherwise booming economy was a transitory blip that booming economy would easily withstand. Just eight days before Bernanke would testify confidently before Congress, the FOMC had met to discuss their lying eyes....

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Living In The Present

2019-01-08

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2019-01-08

10-Year US Treasury Yield 2016-2018
It’s that time of year again, time to cast the runes, consult the iChing, shake the Magic Eight Ball and read the tea leaves. What will happen in 2019? Will it be as bad as 2018 when positive returns were hard to come by, as rare as affordable health care or Miami Dolphin playoff games? Will China’s economy succumb to the pressure of US tariffs and make a deal?

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review: A Whirlwind of Data

2017-11-22

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2017-11-22

The economic data of the last two weeks was generally better than expected, the Citigroup Economic Surprise index near the highs of the year. Still, as I’ve warned repeatedly over the last few years, better than expected should not be confused with good. We go through mini-cycles all the time, the economy ebbing and flowing through the course of a business cycle.

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The Swiss National Bank Now Owns A Record $88 Billion In US Stocks

2017-11-04

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2017-11-04

Value of Swiss National Bank US Stock Holdings, Jun 2014 - Sep 2017
In the third quarter of 2017, one in which the global economy was supposedly undergoing an unprecedented "coordinated growth spurt", and in which central banks were preparing to unveil their QE tapering intentions, in the case of the ECB, or raising rates outright, at the Fed, what was really taking place was another central bank buying spree meant to boost confidence that things are now back to normal, using "money" freshly printed out of thin...

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Forget Tulips & Bitcoin – Here’s The Real Bubble

2017-09-12

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2017-09-12

Swiss National Bank, Jan 2016 - Sep 2017
While the broader market for Swiss stocks has risen modestly this year, one 'entity' has outperformed its peers by such a staggering margin, it has left bamboozled market experts struggling for an explanation. And that company is…the Swiss National Bank. The price of a share in Swiss National Bank in August rose above 3,000 francs ($3,143) for the first time, more than double the level of a year ago, and up 50% since mid-July, as the Financial...

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“Mystery” Central Bank Buyer Revealed: SNB Now Owns A Record $84 Billion In US Stocks

2017-08-11

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2017-08-11

Value of Swiss National Bank US Stock Holdings 2014-2017
In the second quarter of the year, one in which unlike in Q1 fund flows showed a persistent and perplexing outflow from US stocks and into European and Emerging Markets, a trading desk rumor emerged that even as institutional traders dumped stocks and retail investors piled into ETFs, a "mystery" central bank was quietly bidding up risk assets by aggressively buying stocks.

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Central Banks Buying Stocks Have Rigged US Stock Market Beyond Recovery

2017-06-27

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2017-06-27

Central banks buying stocks are effectively nationalizing US corporations just to maintain the illusion that their “recovery” plan is working because they have become the banks that are too big to fail. At first, their novel entry into the stock market was only intended to rescue imperiled corporations, such as General Motors during the first plunge into the Great Recession, but recently their efforts have shifted to propping up the entire stock...

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Is the Central Bank’s Rigged Stock Market Ready to Crash on Schedule?

2017-06-12

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2017-06-12

We just saw a major rift open in the US stock market that we haven’t seen since the dot-com bust in 1999. While the Dow rose by almost half a percent to a new all-time high, the NASDAQ, because it is heavier tech stocks, plunged almost 2%.

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“Mystery” Central Bank Buyer Revealed, Goes On Q1 Buying Spree

2017-05-08

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2017-05-08

Nikkei 225 vs. BoJ ETF Holdings 2011-2017
In the first few months of the year, a trading desk rumor emerged that even as institutional traders dumped stocks and retail investors piled into ETFs, a "mystery" central bank was quietly bidding up risk assets by aggressively buying stocks. And no, it was not the BOJ: while the Japanese Central Bank's interventions in the stock market are familiar to all by now, and as we reported last night on sessions when the "the BoJ comes in big, the...

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Video: The Swiss National Bank Is Acting Like A Hedge Fund

2017-02-26

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2017-02-26

Mario Draghi ECB SNB
We discuss the fact that Central Banks have basically morphed into Hedge Funds with similar risky investing strategies, except they buy without any regard to the underlying fundamentals of the assets they are buying. When did the Swiss Citizens say it was the proper role for the Swiss National Bank to be buying US Stocks? How is this stimulating the Swiss Economy?

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The Psychological Impact Of Loss

2017-01-22

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2017-01-22

SP500-MarketUpdate
For the third time in four weeks, the market was closed on Monday due to a holiday. Not only is this week shortened by a holiday, it is also coinciding with the annual Billionaire’s convention in Davos, Switzerland and the Presidential inauguration on Friday. Increased volatility over the next couple of days will certainly not be surprising.

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We’re All Hedge Funds Now – Central Banks Become World’s Biggest Stock Speculators

2016-11-08

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2016-11-08

CBS
At first, the idea of central banks intervening in the equity markets was probably seen even by its fans as a temporary measure. But that’s not how government power grabs work. Control once acquired is hard for politicians and their bureaucrats to give up. Which means recent events are completely predictable.

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Fed GDP Projections

2016-10-23

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2016-10-23

“It is not surprising the Fed once again failed to take action as their expectations for economic growth were once again lowered. In fact, as I have noted previously, the Federal Reserve are the worst economic forecasters on the planet.

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