COMMENT: I read your post on Trump, Jr. and it does appear obvious that there is no investigation into the whole Maginsky Act and why are Trump Jr.’s lawyers not exposing this more? It seems that corruption only really exists when it always involves government. KA ANSWER: Corruption is a huge problem in all governments […]

The EU Commission is deeply concerned that Italy is under pressure to spend frivolously because of the upcoming elections. The EU is now scrutinizing Italy’s huge sovereign debt. Because of the vast size of the Italian economy, the high level of total debt is a major concern for the Eurozone as a whole. The EU Commission […]

Another solid day for Asia with many talking that the key takeaway was the Hang Seng clearing the 30k mark, the first time in 10 years. It even managed a close above this psychological level adding another 0.6% to the 36% already achieved this year. The Nikkei also added 0.5% an impressive performance given that […]

Asia closed mixed in a fairly quiet session but ahead of what could be a wild week. The Nikkei’s decline was very much reflected in the Yen’s strength. Financials again weighed on the index but this is a reflection of both low volume of shares traded and the shape of the yield curve (2’s – […]

COMMENT: Just quizzed the Canadian Bank insurance CDIC. It is obvious they do not have a specific time period in which to pay claims. Kept dancing around the specific question but they said they pay cash accounts ASAP so people can pay bills. Bottom line, contagion will destroy all financial obligations and transactions. REPLY: No […]

  QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Your post of November 16th where you state that the ECB is looking to freeze accounts in a banking crisis, does that mean they will no longer honour the claimed insurance of €100,000 per account? PH ANSWER: No. They will not pretend to eliminate that insurance, they just will “suspend” it […]

  Interesting that the Yen saw only minimal inbound traffic on Wednesday’s equity sell-off and today is still little changed with a stock rally! Admittedly, volumes are a shadow of what they used to be some years back, but just demonstrates how the game has changed. There is still plenty of money sitting on the […]

  Asian markets opened lower with markets continuing the slide as the day progressed. The Nikkei took the trophy for being the weakest component with a daily loss of 1.6%. With declining energy and commodity prices coupled with poor economic data was enough to take the market lower and the immediate effect was a strengthening […]

All core markets finished lower in Asia today, with the possible exception of the Nikkei that closed almost unchanged. The Hang Seng closed small down but was Shanghai that lost -0.5% which after the data was actually not that bad! Today we saw Industrial Production, Retail Sales and Investment Spending and it was the talk […]

China keeps moving gradually to open up their economy to international forces. The People’s Republic of China has expanded the trade in gold in yuan and thus the internationalization of the national currency is moving closer. Gold merchants from the industrial metropolis of Shenzhen have been trading their yuan gold at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange […]