A big week in the world of monetary management: The Federal Reserve raised rates 25 bps, the ECB announced plans to wind down its historic QE program, and the Bank of Japan clung to its [...]

The first-quarter 2018 Z.1 “flow of funds” report can be viewed in two ways. From one perspective, key conventional data are un-extraordinary. Household debt expanded at a 3.3% rate during the quarter, down from Q4’s [...]

As I see it, cracks are opening in the greatest Bubble of all time. Serious fissures have developed in EM, Europe and China. Meanwhile, the stimulus-driven U.S. economic boom runs unabated. Global fragilities place downward [...]

Interestingly, financial crises over the ages have often unfolded during autumn. Early economic thinkers pondered and debated the sources of instability and the root cause of recurring economic cycles. Even in relatively primitive economic systems, [...]

Where to begin? Contagion… The Argentine peso dropped another 5.0% this week, bringing y-t-d losses to 23.7%. The Turkish lira fell 3.9%, boosting 2018 losses to 15.4%. As notable, the Brazilian real dropped 3.7% (down [...]

Much to the consternation of our allies, President Trump withdraws from the Iran nuclear deal. WTI crude adds another 1.5% (up 17% y-t-d) this week to the high since November 2014. Iran and Israel moved [...]

One hundred and six months. The current expansion, having emerged in the aftermath of the collapse of the mortgage finance Bubble, is now the second-longest on record (lagging only the 120-month 1990’s Bubble period). The [...]

Conventional Wisdom is so often proved wrong. Thinking back over my career, it’s amazing how many times what is believed true without a doubt in the markets turns out completely erroneous. There’s no mystery behind [...]

Equities rallied to begin the week. With Syrian missile strikes more limited than feared and no military response from Russia, there was immediate impetus to unwind hedges. That it was option expiration week ensured plenty [...]

Please join me and David McAlvany for the MWM Tactical Short Second-Quarter 2018 Conference Call: “Market Structure, Trump Tariffs, Higher Rates… Markets at a Precipice?” Thursday, April 19th, at 4:30pm [...]

Please join me and David McAlvany for the MWM Tactical Short Second-Quarter 2018 Conference Call: “Market Structure, Trump Tariffs, Higher Rates… Markets at a Precipice?” Thursday, April 19th, at 4:30pm EST (2:30pm MST): Click here to [...]

For the Final Week of a Wild Quarter: The S&P500 rallied 2.0% (down 1.2% Q1), and the Dow gained 2.4% (down 2.5%). The Utilities jumped 2.9% (down 4.5%). The Banks recovered 2.5% (down 0.2%), and [...]

Deutsche Bank (DB) dropped 13% this week to a 15-month low. DB is now down 28% y-t-d. European banks (STOXX) sank 5.0% this week. Hong Kong (Hang Seng) Financials were down 4.9%. Japan’s TOPIX Bank [...]

WSJ: “Ten Years After the Bear Stearns Bailout, Nobody Thinks It Would Happen Again.” Myriad changes to the financial structure have seemingly safeguarded the financial system from another 2008-style crisis. The big Wall Street financial [...]

So much uncertainty in the world these days. Some things, however, we know with certitude: U.S. Debt, the value of the securities markets and Household Net Worth do grow to the sky. The Fed’s latest [...]

After posting an intra-week high of 25,800 on Tuesday, the DJIA then dropped 1,583 points (6.1%) at the week’s Friday morning low (24,217) – before closing the session at 24,538 (down 3.0% for the week). [...]

The Shanghai Composite traded as high as 3,587 intraday on Monday, January 29th, a more than two-year high. This followed the S&P500’s all-time closing high (2,873) on the previous Friday. On February 9th, the Shanghai [...]

U.S. stocks posted the strongest week of gains since 2013 (would have been 2011 if not for late-day selling). The S&P500 surged 4.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 5.3%. The [...]

February 6 – Wall Street Journal (Spencer Jakab): “Only very rarely has a trade gone from being so good to being so bad so quickly. Among the most profitable trades [...]

Even well into 2017, variations of the “secular stagnation” thesis remained popular within the economics community. Accelerating synchronized global growth notwithstanding, there’s been this enduring notion that economies are burdened by “insufficient aggregate demand.” The [...]