Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have grown in popularity over the last few decades, as they offer a few advantages over other investment vehicles. In particular, retail investors can use them to achieve a much higher degree of diversification within their portfolios without incurring prohibitive fees, while also getting exposure to markets they wouldn’t otherwise be able…
I’m not really a bank investor but when everybody is pessimistic about European banks, the alarm bells ring in my head and I’m tempted to oppose the herd. If there’s profits to be made, it is often via the ugly improving to just bad and not so much via the good improving to even better.…
So here we are again at a junction where policymakers have only two choices: one leads to a merry-go-round that ends and starts at the exact same point; the other leads to a dead-end, forcing a return to the departure point. This has been the choice faced by policymakers over the last few years and…
Back in 2014, and mostly due to the slump in oil prices, Russia fell into a downward spiral that saw the value of its currency slashed and its economy enter a recession. Almost two years later, the currency and the stock market market have recovered, but the economy is still underwater, with GDP declining for…
If I were President Erdogan, I wouldn’t congratulate myself too precipitously upon the failed coup attempt. While his government survived the weekend’s military coup, his country’s future may have been compromised, as Turkey has just exploded the bridge that was guiding Turkey into the bosom of the developed world. This represents the regression of a…
As seen in the latest issue of Master Investor Magazine “The Federal Reserve Bank buys government bonds without one penny…” – Congressman Wright Patman, Congressional Record, Sept 30, 1941 Unlimited Intervention Over the last few years, investors have been trying to front run central banks by purchasing bonds, in anticipation of huge price increases…
The last two weeks have been tough mostly because of the Brexit outcome, as it created volatility where peace was previously found. But, speculators, spread bettors and investors all find the best opportunities during panic situations like this. The world has been turned upside down: the 43-year British EU membership is at risk, the pound…
“What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.” –…
“It pounds daily on the nerves: the insanity of numbers, the uncertain future… An epidemic of fear and naked need: lines of shoppers, long since a customary sight, once more form in front of shops, first in front of one, then in front of all… The lines always send the same signal: the city, the…
Things are getting nasty for central banks. They’re wasting their remaining credibility with foolish predictions that just end up being revised at every policy meeting. As I expected, the FED kept rates unchanged for the sixth consecutive month after hiking its funds target in last December to 0.25 – 0.50pc. The FED’s prediction of…
