Abenomics: one arrow short of a quiver
The craziness that is Abenomics seems to have one flimsy foundation: viz., that Japan’s fiscal situation seems so dire as not to be susceptible of a rational approach. Not that this is any real excuse...
View ArticleGivers of the Law
Pride of place for political news outside the US must go to the UK High Court’s decision that the infamous Article 50 clause by which Brexit is to be achieved cannot take place without being subject to...
View ArticleThe Austrian Prescription
At the start of the year it has become wearily traditional for us pundits to offer one of two genres of prediction. The first takes the form of a genuine—if ultimately foredoomed—attempt to lift a...
View ArticleFaking it
SUMMARY: Thanks to the election of President Trump and to his uncompromising attitude to the establishment media, much hot air is being expended on the subject of ‘fake news’. What we should really be...
View ArticleLatest 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...
View ArticleChina: 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...
View ArticleDreams 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...
View ArticleGibson’s Non-Paradox
Birmingham statistician and financial forecaster Arthur H. Gibson’s so-called ‘paradox’ came about from his detailed empirical findings that the level of bond yields (as measured by the price of...
View ArticleThe Eternal Triangle
Are equities ‘overpriced’ and if so, by how much? What about bonds or that largely forgotten asset-class, commodities? How do the three of them inter-relate and can we take advantage of such behaviour...
View ArticlePump’n’Dump
One of the prevailing stories which nervous market participants whisper to each other at bedtime involves the timely appearance of the Fairy God-mother, hastening to Earth from Tir Nan Og to launch...
View ArticleTrade Wars: Blue-on-Blue
The so-called ‘war’ over trade being conducted by the US & China has given rise to much ill-informed commentary about its supposed benefits, its prospective victims, and China’s putative responses....
View ArticleM4 Compendium
As a way of providing easy access to most of the regular work we have published over the past year – and hence to getting a feel for what we do and how we do it – please see here for a collection in...
View ArticleMMT: The Court Astrologer’s Dream
MMT has recently enjoyed a sudden resurgence in popularity. but, like so many other systems which claim to reveal previously undiscovered truths, it turns out to be nothing more than a retread of a...
View ArticleTurnaround Tuesday
After the excitement of the past few sessions, it was not entirely unexpected that what we old market stagers used to call, ‘Turnaround Tuesday’, would deliver its traditional mix of reflection,...
View ArticleTurning Japanese
A noted [monetary extremist] resident at GMU’s Mercatus Center fretted on March 20th that Japan’s efforts during 2001-06 to have the central bank finance deficits ‘didn’t work’ – i.e., they failed to...
View ArticleMoney v Supply
With many commodity prices touching multi-year lows and with mounting fears for real estate valuations and car-lease residuals, numerous commentators seem convinced that ours is now a deflationary...
View ArticleHoping for Growth. Searching for Value.
Thanks very much to my old friend, Steve Sedgwick at Squawk Box Europe for the chat this morning. We looked at Growth v Value, the US v ROW, we touched on bonds and borrowing, money supply, inflation,...
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