Central Banks, Inequality & Market Manipulation
The Pew Research Center last week released a report showing that from 2009 to 2011 the top 7% of American households (based on net worth) realized a 28% gain in wealth while the bottom 93% saw a 4% decline. In a statement of the blatantly obvious, Pew said the difference was a result of the .. read more
Tactical Update
The 21st century, global, economic saga continues to provide plenty of nuance. The past few weeks, we’ve been introduced to a few new characters, Cyprus and Russia. There is a bit of a rogue element with Russia. Regardless, the same common themes are present for analysis: leverage, speculation, global capital imbalances and the accompanying political, .. read more
Sequester The Fed
“If Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize our military readiness. It will eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research. It won’t consider whether we’re cutting some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness or a vital service that Americans depend on every single day.” President Obama on .. read more
Goldilocks Or The Big Bad Bear?
Once upon a time in a commentary long, long ago I said that we’d know the US economy was on the right track when we saw three conditions simultaneously: rising stocks, a rising dollar and a falling gold price. Those three conditions – sustained – would indicate that the market is anticipating better growth and .. read more
Buy Low, Sell High
Buy low, sell high. It is one of the most abused of market axioms and says both quite a lot and nothing at all. Of course you need to buy assets when they are cheap and sell them when they are dear but low and high aren’t exact terms and are, like beauty, amorphous qualities .. read more
Batten Down The Hatches
Back in November I wrote a weekly commentary that I called Looking For Silver Linings. The market had been taking a beating in the post election period and I wasn’t feeling particularly good about my forecasting skills. I had written a commentary just two weeks before arguing that the election really didn’t matter that much .. read more
The Temptation Of Risk
Lance Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey last week what most rational observers had concluded many years ago – he took performance enhancing drugs during his 7 Tour de France wins. His excuse – as Randall Forsyth points out in Barron’s this week – is one that every parent knows well – everyone else was doing it. Peer .. read more
Really Big Coins, Constitutional Amendments & Other Stupid Ideas
I haven’t yet commented on the Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin option to avoid the debt ceiling because it is so stupid that I couldn’t fathom that anyone might actually take it seriously. Silly me. It appears that I underestimated the desire of certain politicians to keep spending ever larger amounts of our cash. No less .. read more
