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…
As seen in the latest issue of Master Investor Magazine Between a Rock and a Hard Place Eight years after the nadir of the financial crisis, interest rates are still near zero in the US and negative in many European countries and Japan. Fiscal policy has quietly assumed a secondary role while central bankers have…
The inability of the FED to hike rates is turning into a chronic disease. Each time the central bank becomes more hawkish in anticipation of a hike, something happens to erode the prospects for even the smallest hike. Since the time of Ben Bernanke, the FED has been putting too much stock in the market’s…
At first it was about the return on capital and now it is about the return on labour. One at a time, the main incentives that keep a market-based economy oiled are being wrecked. Central banks have already eliminated interest rates, discouraging saving; now governments want to introduce a universal basic income, which will discourage…
The financial crisis of 2007-2009 should be renamed the financial crisis of 2007-(?) when it comes to the Eurozone. Eight years after the peak of the crisis, the region is still drowning in debt, plagued by deflation, hobbled by a weak banking sector (headed by a big, fat central bank), and submerged in weak economic…
The last year has been tough for Valeant Pharmaceuticals, as the Canadian specialty drug maker has been involved in scandals, accounting misstatements and fraud, all of which battered down its share price from a 2015 high at $236.81 to the current price near $29. On April 7, I recommended a long position in this “troublemaker”,…
Global gyrations During the last decade we have played witness to massive capital movements around the world. Money has flowed from developed countries towards emerging markets, just to flow back in the opposite direction at a later date. While lifting barriers to capital movement has helped intensify global trade and accelerate the development process of…
