We are at a juncture where the full extent of India’s massive demonetisation mess will be revealed as banks prepare for an assault at their physical currency holdings. After removing 87% of the circulating currency, the government is preparing to allow citizens to withdraw whatever they want in the new currency. But is there enough…
My family has gathered on the Isle of Man for the holiday period, and a jolly time we have had. The one unpredictable and notorious feature of this beautiful island is the “four seasons in one day” phenomenon, which means we go from lashing rain to bright clear skies in literally a matter of minutes.…
Preparing for higher inflation and interest rates After so many years of extreme monetary policy, of public and private deleveraging, of very low (to negative) interest rates and yields, and of slow economic growth and subdued inflation, the world is changing at the hand of Donald Trump. Investors are already preparing for different times, by…
If you ever wondered what that Christmas song really means, look no further. It’s the moment to look back over the momentous year gone by and to prepare for the even more tumultuous one about to dawn. Some amuses bouches for hungry investors, accompanied by a glass of effervescent speculation. A partridge in a pear-shaped…
I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words. – Donald Trump (during U.S. presidential campaign, 2016) The…
For the second time in a decade, the Fed has hiked its key interest rate target. One year after the first hike, the central bank decided to give continuity to a new tightening trend that is still expected to evolve very slowly over time. Policymakers at the FED now expect three rate rises in 2017,…
Here we are, finally, at a time when both the ECB and the FED are required to take important policy steps and are expected to diverge the most in years. After much volatility in 2016 because of Brexit, Italy, and Trump, investors are now concentrating their attention on central banks and their magic crafts. Dodging…
2016 will go down in the annals of history as the year that the world changed course. Hitherto, since the 1970s, the main theme of global economic development was globalisation – the idea that international borders were inimical to economic development; that tariff-free trade went hand in hand with the free flows of goods, capital…
Another vote, another shock Yesterday, Italy became the most recent domino to fall in the global populist revolution about which I wrote in this month’s MI magazine. If Mr Cameron (score: 48 percent) resigned at half past eight in the morning, Signor Renzi, the Italian Prime Minister (score: 40 percent) resigned at midnight. He had…
Every school kid now knows that if the British government wants to fulfil the will of the British people expressed last June they have “to trigger” or, “to invoke” Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon (2007). Prime Minister May has stated that she intends to do this before the end of March 2017. Sadly,…
