If you pay attention to the banking headlines, then you know that there is no greedier, more grasping regulatory regime pertaining to gouging the global banks than the United States' Federal Reserve and their co-conspirators over at the Justice Department. In only the latest example...
Every so often, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), appropriately based in Switzerland, comes out with their take on the global economy and their perceived risks to it. They recently published their latest one for the first half of 2017. Buried amidst their various warnings...
This past week saw the continuing geopolitical chaos in Europe and the world move to a new level. On the continent, a war of bitter words and Turkish street protests erupted between the Netherlands and...
In another fast-paced week, U.S. President Trump abandoned the decade long commitment to the two state solution in the elusive quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.Investors eyes were mostly focused elsewhere though, as the rise...
The last week of 2016 saw more of the customary turbulence which has become so commonplace in a market-rocking volatile year. Italy's Monte Paschi Bank may be getting an over 8 billion euros bailout, yet the European Central Bank forecasts their problems will continue indefinitely...
After a year long hiatus, and for only the second time in ten long years, the U.S. Federal Reserve managed to increase the benchmark interest rates by an underwhelming one-quarter of a percentage point. Markets had been anticipating this action for months upon end. Market...
The U.S. and world data is more critical than ever the week before the U.S. election. This past week, the American economy added fewer jobs than economists had predicted while the Fed chose to say out of the limelight and held off on interest rate...
The latest comments by Federal Reserve Chair Ms. Yellen have given the US dollar a boost and spooked the Bond market. Yellen made a speech at Harvard on Friday morning, and the market read her statements as being conclusive to more hikes during 2016. It...
Performance of Price since start of year Gold has had one of the best starts to the year, with a jump of 16% in the first quarter, which also happens to be the largest increase in Q1 for the past 42 years. The YTD is also...
Strength of most recent rally subdued Not all stock market rallies are made the same. Some have incredible momentum, with average daily gains well above 1% and many single day gains above 3%. A strong upward move in a broad index indicates the strength of a...
Back on December 14, I argued that various fundamental, technical and macro developments indicated that the stock market was set for a fall. Call it luck rather than skill, but the S&P 500 index slid roughly 200 points over the following two months, hitting a closing low for 2016 on...
The Stock market got off to a bumpy start to the beginning of the year amid concerns about global recession and fears of a hard landing for the Chinese economy. However, the past three weeks has seen the stock market rebound giving the impression that...
The economic recovery and mild expansion has been possible mostly thanks to the enormous amounts of money printed by the FED. The so called Quantitative Easing, which simply consists of printing new money and increasing government debt. Is QE a sustainable policy going forward? This has proven...
A number of fixed-income markets have been on a tear in recent weeks. Treasurys, for example, have rallied sharply, pushing yields lower across the board. So, too, have some municipal and higher-rated corporate bonds. Does that mean what I argued previously is wrong? Perhaps, but...
The Federal Reserve has been getting us used to some sharp changes of heart from one meeting to the next. With talk taking a hawkish stance at one FOMC meeting being taken down by dovish talk as soon as the next. We saw this happen...
The real estate sector's solid performance in recent years has convinced many investors that it is an attractive alternative to traditional investments. For some, it seems, property is a safer haven than gold and other precious metals.However, there are reasons to believe this might not be the case going forward. Arguably, one rationale stems from...
Two recent articles sum up how challenging the past 12 months have been for many investors. In "The Year Nothing Worked: Stocks, Bonds, Cash Go Nowhere," Bloomberg cites data from Bianco Research that shows 2015 was "the worst year for asset allocation funds since 1937," noting that "practically...
It's been said that the responses to a crisis sow the seeds of the next upheaval. Indeed, history suggests that the so-called fixes often fall short of expectations. First, they fail to take account of the fact that the causes of each episode are often unique....
One has to be careful about reading too much into short-term swings in asset prices. This is especially true in December, when markets become increasingly illiquid and occasionally volatile as companies, banks and investors close out their books and wind down market-related activities for the year. That said, the fact...
In the old, pre-crisis days, it was not odd to think that bad news for bonds was good news for stocks. It made sense from a fundamental perspective. Fixed-income markets tend to do poorly when economic activity is strong or inflation is rising; in contrast, such...
