Between Li Keqiang, Mario Draghi, and the BLS, markets everywhere had a wild ride into the weekend. Starting east and working west, the upshot of the Chinese ‘Twin Sessions’ was a perseverance with the so-called ‘New Normal’ theme – namely, with the idea that headline, GDP-style growth should be lower in future with the emphasis shifting […]
Category Archives: Equities
As the title of the blog suggests, we pay close attention to developments in money and credit since the twin precepts of our outlook are that ‘the credit cycle IS the business cycle’ and that ‘silver [i.e., money] is the true sinews of the circulation’. It is all very well for both macro-economists and stock-pickers […]
Avoiding for now all comment on the ongoing Eurozone schism, we start by taking a look at the UK where, conveniently in the run-up to the May election, everything seem to be coming up roses for the incumbents. Retail sales are strong, CBI output intentions are comfortably back inside the upper decile of the last 20 […]
More than half a century ago, in his role as an advisor to the men responsible for trying to set Taiwan on the road to prosperity, a redoubtable economist called Sho-Chie Tsiang argued that the monetary authorities should stop suppressing interest rates and directly rationing credit and should move instead toward a more market-oriented system where […]
While money can be made in markets on the minutest of scales, sometimes it helps to have a broader sense of perspective. After all, if you can’t locate yourself on a map – without the aid of GPS, children! – you don’t know where you are and if you have no grasp of history, you […]
Here’s a question for all the cheering QEuro fans out there. If you came across a country where both real and nominal money supply were growing at rates in the low teens – something its people had not experienced for almost a decade and close to the fastest seen in the last four – would […]
Wracked by the actions of the various central banks – which gave us another key reminder that volatility does not equate to risk – yet not wishing to start rethinking their entire thesis, a characteristic loss confidence has started to set in among those who were telling themselves over the Christmas trukey just what geniuses […]
Back in the halcyon days of summer, it seemed nothing could go wrong. Commodities were still things it was not utterly disreputable to own. Base metals had shaken off a springtime swoon to hit 18 month highs. Though still suffering from that enervating, post-bubble flatness, precious metals had just enjoyed a neat little 10% rally. […]
For all those still clinging to the hope that today’s extraordinary level of equity valuation will soon reverse and what we fondly remember as ‘normality’ will again break out (and we confess that we are often to be found among their camp), we and they should never lose sight of the fact that this exaggeration is […]
It is rare these days to come across an investment manager or a strategist who will not proudly volunteer that he is either ‘Long the Nikkei, short the Yen,’ or is telling his clients to position themselves that way. With all due caveats about crowded trades and the like, we cannot find the second part […]