Category Archives: Cycles

Dreams of Gerontius

At the end of last month, the Mighty Oz’s and Grand Panjandrums of central banking descended upon the rural splendours of Wyoming in order to engage in a very public display of navel gazing and to enact a ritual, group reinforcement of confirmation bias. There, we heard much nonsense talked about low – even negative […]

Doleful dollar boosts the Base

[An edited version of the following appeared in Moneyweek under the title, ‘What’s unsettling the US Dollar?‘] ‘Dollar makes worst start to the year since 1985,’  screamed the headlines a few weeks ago in a classic click-bait attempt to get people to read about what they already should know by using a somewhat artificial statistic […]

China: Turn of the Tide?

In an earlier Monitor, we alluded to a possible monetary reason for suspecting that the past year’s spectacular (and inflationary) bounce in Chinese revenues and earnings might have reached its high-water mark. Here we take a more detailed look at the situation in the Middle Kingdom:- 17-08-21 China

Patterns, Predictions & the PMI

Certain schools of thought – among them the so-called ‘Market Monetarists’, as well as George Selgin’s Fractional Free Bankers – believe – in line with the thinking of the later Hayek – that the Fed would be better off effecting policy with regard to the maintenance of a steady rate of growth of nominal GDP. […]

The Mephisto Polka

[This article appeared in edited form in the Epoch Times and also in the Daily Telegraph] In her recent set-piece testimony before Congress, Janet Yellen made clear that she is determined to repeat the sort of ‘gradualism’ in raising rates that proved so disastrous after the Tech bust. In other words, that she will not […]

Patience, Bund bears! Patience!

No, Mario is NOT about to give up – whatever! China monetary trends might mean the industrial earnings cycle has peaked. US debt levels are still OK, but the low cost is promoting slightly worrisome growth – nor are Tech balance sheets entirely without blemish. Commodities – clueless and friendless. Please click for the latest Monitor […]

Fretting on the Fed: Monitor No.5

Falling returns in the US. Tight money in China. An upswing in Japan. Deflation in India. Gold goes cold. Fretting the Fed on falling CPI and a flattening curve? No need to panic, just yet. Please click for the latest Monitor. 17-06-20 M4 No5

Latest Edition

Please click the link for my latest thoughts, including a look at equity margin debt, the broad symmetry between today’s richest-ever & the 1980s’ cheapest bonds, the new natgas bulls, China, and gold.   17-05-29 M4 No 2  

US GDP – Where’s the Beef?

The old adage that ‘the market must climb a wall of worry’ – i.e., that the best bull runs take place to the accompaniment of a swelling chorus of doubters – seems to have taken on a broader application in the economy at large where everything and anything which can be negatively construed currently calls […]

Dies illa? Not just yet.

The First Time as Tragedy In the past, our ready predisposition to fear the worst has proven to be well-founded. Indeed, through much of the two years leading up to the Great Crash of 2008, there was all too much evidence to ignore that a kind of collective madness had gripped the whole universe of […]