The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned at the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, that in the face of crises, the refusal to reform how things are functioning will lead to economic weakness in the global economy. “The latest data show subdued activity, less growth in trade and a very low inflation, suggesting an even […]

We are monitoring confidence in the banking system as reflected by cash withdrawals. The sale of home safes has exploded in many countries. I previously reported that one in ten currency notes in Switzerland being printed is now the 1000 franc note. In fact, there is some 41.6 billion in Swiss francs now in circulation in 1000 […]

  The new SEC rule on money market funds takes effect October 17, 2016. There is never a crisis that simply passes. Such events always lead to more regulation even when those creating the rules are clueless about what they are regulating. The 2007-2009 crisis did more that wipe out Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns than anything […]

Central bankers these days are seriously trapped. They cannot now reverse their policies for that means they have to admit that they have failed. This is why the Yellen is not so eager to move to negative rates and has continued to take the view that rates must be normalized (raised). That is far more […]

The Pension Crisis continues to spiral out of control and the central banks are incapable to reversing their policy. Raising rates now will cause budgets to explode and all the bonds they bought would collapse in price no less become totally unsalable. Now in Germany, the Bundesbank has addressed this crisis advising that the population […]

QUESTION: What do you think of value investing? Bob ANSWER: As with everything, a cycle that you have to understand will unfold. Everything will move to extremes on both sides and you must understand the driving forces. Look at the PE Ratio. People write in and say I am wrong and the market must crash because […]

The Asian cash markets just could not wait to open this morning after the huge Payrolls number on Friday. Admittedly, it took a little time and a better than expected Trade Surplus number (52.31 v’s and estimated 47.6) for the Shanghai market to join the excitement, but they eventually did to close +0.9% firmer. The […]

Japanese 10-year bonds have crashed because the government is stopping its bond-buying program, at least for now. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s monetary policy is starting to demonstrate the dangerous position we face on a global scale with respect to interest rates and debt. Japanese 10-year bonds have crashed since the Bank of Japan now holds over […]

The arrogance of those in power is typically beyond belief. Those in the International Monetary Fund have been so biased that their own refusal to review what is going on within Europe has been a great contributor to the demise of the Eurozone. It has now been acknowledged that the IMF’s top staff misled their own board based […]

More talk that the expected that the Japanese stimulus package could exceed the JPY 20tln and could even be as large as 28tln boosted the Nikkei and sent the Yen back to 104.50 level. Rumours have been circulating for a while and even yesterday stories were that the package would only be a fraction worried the market yesterday resulting in the 1.4% loss. […]