Category Archives: Federal Reserve

A recent miscellany

Does it make sense to plot multi-decade asset prices on a linear scale? How reliable are macro ‘profit’ estimates? Why is the curve flattening and what will a reduction in Central Bank reserve balances mean for assets? S0me recent short snaps from my LinkedIn & Twitter feeds plus you can watch my latest update ‘China: […]

Once through with feeling

Some readers may be interested in putting a voice – and even a face – to the author. Below are links to three recent audio-visual publications in which I discuss US & Chinese macro as well as the interrelations between the three great asset classes of stocks, bonds, an commodities. Following on is a wider […]

Ten Years After

A little over 10 years ago, a hitherto obscure German institution called IKB – majority-owned by an arm of the German government – suddenly made headlines around the world. On the last day of July 2007, a company which ironically had its origins in a foredoomed effort to ‘stimulate’ the German economy in the aftermath […]

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 […]

The Fed’s Non-Barking Dogs

[This article appeared in slightly abridged form in the Epoch Times under the title, ‘The Fed’s Quantitative Tightening‘] The older a bull market gets, those who are paid to comment on it become more and more desperate for new things to say about it – a professionally pressing need which tends to split the pundits […]

Pluto’s Republic

The more our would-be Philosopher Kings attempt to display the awesome panoply of their intellectual armour, the more we think, not of the Greek sage from whom they seem to draw inspiration, but of Mickey Mouse’s dopey canine friend. In bonds, the Bears are mounting another one of their forlorn hope charges against the central […]

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

Cracks in the Facade: Monitor update

The new M4 is here. Tech tremors, Musk magic and a rich US equity market. Ex-energy to give it some gas? The pounded sterling and taking aim at the TARGET. Latest thoughts to be had by clicking on the link. 17-06-13 M4 No 4

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 […]