Markets have returned to the 1970s. They have to cope with “Putinflation”, recession, rising interest rates and energy prices – as well as geopolitical and nuclear risk. Unfortunately, today’s traders do not even have the experience of the 1960s as a guide, having lived in a different world for 20 years.
Chemicals and the Economy
Financial markets party as global trade wars begin
More people left poverty in the past 70 years than in the whole of history, thanks to the BabyBoomer-led economic SuperCycle. World Bank and OECD data show that less than 10% of the world’s population now live below the extreme poverty line of $1.90/day, compared to 55% in 1950. Globalisation has been a key element in […]
Eurozone joins Japan’s ‘currency war’ versus the US dollar
The last 10 days have seen turmoil in major currency markets: The Swiss National Bank gave up trying to devalue versus the euro, and the franc jumped 30% in minutes The European Central Bank (ECB) launched its €1tn Quantitative Easing (QE) programme, causing an immediate 3% fall in the euro’s value versus the dollar These are major moves by any historical […]
Volcker speaks out on central bank policies
Central bankers clearly read too many super-hero comics when they were young. Ben Bernanke at the US Federal Reserve, Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank, Mervyn King at the Bank of England and now Haruhiko Kuroda at the Bank of Japan, all see themselves as Superman solving the world financial crisis. The only problem […]
The Bank of Dad and Mum rules
Paul McCulley of Pimco, the world’s largest bond fund managers, has been continually insightful about the lead-up to the current Crisis and its fall-out. He first alerted the blog to the work of Hyman Minsky, which is the best (and so far only) explanation for the disaster that is continuing to hit the world financial […]
Crude oil markets lose support
The oil market rally seems finally to be running out of steam. For months now, it has been driven by the ‘correlation trade’, whereby Wall Street traders sell the US$ and buy crude oil. But as the chart shows, the two lines have now begun to diverge. Fundamentals have clearly started to affect the €:$ […]
Volcker returns
Sometimes, a picture is worth 1000 words. That’s the case with this photo (used by most of the world’s major news media), showing President Obama with former US Fed Governor Paul Volcker by his side. Volcker’s re-emergence is the first real sign of a serious shift in policy towards the financial sector. And the blog […]
Volcker calls for meaningful financial reform
Paul Volcker was the last US Federal Reserve chairman who believed that a key part of its role was “to take away the punchbowl just when the party starts getting interesting“. He successfully brought inflation back to single figures during the 1980’s downturn, setting the scene for the major economic recovery that followed. Now head […]
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