Remember the European debt crisis? When everyone was horrified at Greek debt and then started to eye Spain, Ireland, Italy and Portugal with suspicion as well? All the pundits muttered darkly about which banks were most disastrously ‘exposed’ to Greek or Spanish debt. Charts were made, names named, figures compiled and arrows drawn. It was […]

I think it’s time we took a dispassionate look at what the markets are really telling us rather than what the financial media say they are telling us. The meta story about the markets is that money has been flowing OUT of the stock market and into the Bond market for the last 17 consecutive

Time for a quick snap shot of where we are in Europe. Bit like a school photo. Spain – unemployment rose 1.6% in August. That gives a year on year rise of 9.4%! And remember a rise in August means unemployment going up during holiday season when Spain should be hiring. This is not good.

Well once again the real world and the markets diverged. And once again it was left to a dysfunctional business media to concoct a story to reconcile the two. Today GM reported a 24.9% drop in sales from last year. Nisan down 27%. Volkswagen down 7.9. Honda drop 33%. If no one is buying cars,

Two bits of news which seem to me to go together. First the growing unrest globally with the disparity and volatility of currencies. And second the huge increase in currency trading. FX (Foreign Exchange) trading has now reached 4 trillion dollars worth PER DAY. That is a 20% increase since 2007 and the present banking

Japan’s long suicide continues. The Japanese stock index, the Nikkei fell 3.6% today. The ‘strong words’ from the Finance Minister had less than no effect. Did any one really think words were going to be sufficient any more? All they achieved was to show the other market players that the bank and the government are

I believe we are seeing the early signs of a hugely important re-alignment of the American political landscape. I think the Right Wing of American politics is fracturing. The Right Wing of American politics has always had two broad wings: the Religious\Social Right and the Corporate Right. One was the Moral Majority concerned with home

The Jackson Hole meeting did not have the air of inspired purpose about it. It was basically the half witted pecking at the half baked. Fractious chickens in a yard clucking and strutting with witless self importance without an idea between them. The BoJ was seized by a thought and left in a confusion of

Well things from Jackson Hole seem to be following the script so far. Bernanke says ‘the Fed will not allow delfation and stands ready to take whatever action is needed’. Trichet then stands up and says, ‘waiting for the recovery to happen before cutting public and private debts would be “very dangerous” and lead to

On the face of it Mr Bernanke said not very much at all. So you do have to ask why the markets and in particular the financial sector rallied so hard? Did he say something we didn’t pick up on? Well the highlights were that the Fed would just not allow deflation. Which means there