Weekly Commentary Archives

Being an analyst of Credit and Bubbles over the past few decades has come with its share of challenges. Greater challenges await. I expect to dedicate the rest of my life to defending Capitalism. One [...]

I’ve been dreading this. In the midst of all the policy responses to the collapse of the mortgage finance Bubble, I recall writing something to the effect: “I understand we can’t allow the system to [...]

It was as if global markets pulled elements from the 1994 bond market dislocation, 1997’s Asian Bubble collapses, the 1998 Russian/LTCM fiasco, and the 2008 market crash – and synthesized them for a week of [...]

Pondering the shallowness of analyses being espoused by the vast majority of market pundits, I’m compelled to frame a thesis to help explain today’s most extraordinary backdrop. The coronavirus outbreak will eventually pass, though I [...]

“U.S. Stocks Tumble 11% in Worst Week Since Crisis,” read the Friday evening Bloomberg headline. A Wall Street Journal caption asked the apt question: “U.S. Stocks Were at Records Last Week. What Happened?” A Friday [...]

Coronavirus cases in China surpassed 76,000. Deaths have reached 2,345. The number of new cases has slowed markedly, perhaps owing to repeated changes in the methodology of counting infections. Developments elsewhere are less encouraging. Plans [...]

Confirmed coronavirus cases almost doubled over the past week to 67,000. Part of the spike was the result of including a group diagnosed through CT imaging scans rather than with typical coronavirus testing. The ballooning [...]

The S&P500 rallied 3.2% this week (trading to all-time highs Thursday), more than reversing (by 1.5 times) the previous week’s 2.1% decline. Ten-year Treasury yields rebounded as well, yet the eight bps rise was less [...]

January 31 – Bloomberg: “Chinese officials took issue with U.S. comments about the country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, and promised they would bring the infection under control. ‘U.S. comments are inconsistent with the facts [...]

The market week began with cases of the coronavirus jumping to 222, including four outside China. China’s National Health Commission confirmed human-to-human virus transmission. By Friday, more than 1,200 infections had been confirmed, with 41 [...]

Please join Doug Noland and David McAlvany this coming Thursday, January 23rd, at 4:00PM Eastern/ 2:00pm Mountain time for the Tactical Short Q4 recap conference call, “Surviving an Equities Melt Up” Click here to register. [...]

When I began posting the CBB in 1999, I expected “Bubble” to be in the title for no longer than a year or two. It was to be the “Credit Bulletin,” inspired by Benjamin Anderson’s [...]

It cannot be overstated: Bubbles are of paramount importance – for markets, finance more generally, economies, and social and geopolitical stability. Two U.S. bursting episodes over the past twenty years would seem to make this [...]

For the Week: The S&P500 added 0.6% (up 29.2% y-t-d), and the Dow increased 0.7% (up 22.8%). The Utilities slipped 0.3% (up 22.2%). The Banks added 0.3% (up 32.3%), while the Broker/Dealers declined 0.8% (up [...]

Oregon’s economy was at the time ravaged by our nation’s high inflation and Paul Volcker’s battle to rein it in. The state’s unemployment rate was over 10% when I graduated from the University of Oregon [...]

Q3 was yet another fascinating quarter for U.S. finance. Total Credit (Non-Financial, Financial and Foreign U.S. borrowings) jumped a nominal $1.075 TN, the strongest quarterly gain since Q4 2007’s $1.159 TN, ending September at $74.862 [...]

Dr. Bernanke has referred to the understanding of the forces behind the Great Depression as the “Holy Grail of Economics.” But was the Great Depression chiefly the consequence of post-crash policy mistakes, as conventional thinking [...]

For the Week: The S&P500 gained 1.0% (up 25.3% y-t-d), and the Dow added 0.6% (up 20.3%). The Utilities were unchanged (up 19.0%). The Banks added 0.4% (up 27.9%), and the Broker/Dealers jumped 2.1% (up [...]

Last week from The Institute of International Finance (IIF) (a summary from a members-only report): “Global debt has topped $250 billion – 320% of GDP: emerging market debt hits a new record of $71.4 trillion [...]

We shouldn’t read too much into one month. With a holiday week, October is typically a sluggish period for lending in China. But at $88 billion, the growth in Aggregate Financing was about a third [...]