June 18 – Financial Times (Mohamed El-Erian): “In hiking rates and, more notably, reaffirming its forward policy guidance and setting out plans for the phased contraction of its balance sheet, [...]

Bloomberg Radio/Television’s Tom Keene, Wednesday June 14, 2017: “Professor, what is the question you want to ask chair Yellen at the press conference here in six minutes?” Narayana Kocherlakota, former [...]

It was a week that saw Mario Draghi cling stubbornly to ultra-dovish monetary policy, the UK’s Brexit strategy thrown into even greater disarray after Prime Minister Theresa May’s failed election [...]

It’s not quite 1999 at this point, but it’s been moving in that direction. In about five months’ time, the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) has posted a gain of 20.5%. NDX [...]

Marie Diron, Moody’s associate managing director, Sovereign Risk Group, commenting Wednesday on Moody’s Chinese downgrade (Bloomberg Television): “It is likely to be a very medium-term and gradual erosion of credit [...]

For the Week: The S&P500 slipped 0.4% (up 6.4% y-t-d), and the Dow declined 0.4% (up 5.3%). The Utilities lost 0.5% (up 6.1%). The Banks fell 1.6% (down 1.9%), and [...]

There was little market reaction to Emanuel Macron’s widely-anticipated big victory in the French presidential election. The euro actually retreated somewhat, in a “sell the news” dynamic. European equities ended [...]

We’re at an important juncture for the global Bubble. There are growing divergences and anomalies. Market signals are increasingly conflicting and confounding: European equities in melt-up and U.S. markets at [...]

With Emanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen moving on to next Sunday’s (May 7) runoff French presidential election, first-round results proved right in line with the polls. One would typically [...]

April 21 – Reuters (Vikram Subhedar): “The $1 trillion of financial assets that central banks in Europe and Japan have bought so far this year is the best explanation for [...]

Global “Risk Off” has been Making Some Headway. This week saw ten-year Treasury yields drop 15 bps to 2.23%, the low since the week following the election. German bund yields [...]

For the Week: The S&P500 slipped 0.3% (up 5.2% y-t-d), while the Dow was about unchanged (up 4.5%). The Utilities added 0.3% (up 5.3%). The Banks fell 1.2% (down 1.0%), and the Broker/Dealers dropped 2.4% [...]

An intriguing first quarter. The year began with bullish exuberance for the Trump policy agenda. With the GOP finally in control of Washington, there was now little in the way [...]

Market focus this week turned to troubled healthcare legislation, with the GOP Friday pulling the vote on the repeal of Obamacare. This “Republican Catastrophe” (Drudge ran with a Hindenburg photo) [...]

March 16 – Financial Times (Robin Wigglesworth, Joe Rennison and Nicole Bullock): “When Romeo impatiently hankered after Juliet, the sage friar Lawrence dispensed some valuable advice: ‘Wisely and slow; they [...]

New Fed Q4 Z.1 Credit and flow data was out this week. For the first time since 2007, annual Total Non-Financial Debt (NFD) growth exceeded $2.0 TN – a bogey [...]

How about a cursory look at recent economic data: February’s 57.7 ISM Manufacturing reading was the strongest since August 2014. New Orders at 65.1 matched the strongest level (Dec. 2013) [...]

The DJIA rose 11 straight sessions (“longest streak since the Reagan administration”) to end the week at a record 20,822. The S&P500 gained 0.7% this week (up 5.7% y-t-d), its [...]

February 14 – Bloomberg: “China added more credit last month than the equivalent of Swedish or Polish economic output, revving up growth and supporting prices but also fueling concerns about [...]

February 10 – Financial Times (John Authers): “The Importance of Bubbles That Did Not Burst:” “Is there really such a thing as a market bubble? I feel almost heretical answering this [...]