According to local sources in the Middle East, financial difficulties in Saudi Arabia may see a cash injection coming for its oil industry – Aramco. The Saudis are considering a private placement of its shares instead of a traditional float of shares on the stock exchange. The buyer is of course China. Saudi Aramco has been considering the international […]

Today we saw Bitcoin (BTC) close and break through the 5000-dollar mark for the first time –BTC recovered fast from the recent downturn to 2800 level found mid-September, the issue I have is what is the long-term prospects with such a cryptocurrency. The questions we must ask is will Governments allow such a currency without […]

Mario Draghi, declared the intentions of the ECB were to keep rates low, well after the bond-buying program has ended. Draghi stated this was important to keep borrowing costs at bay and promote solid growth within the Eurozone. The EUR/USD rate, is still in the 1.18 region losing 20bps today. The big ECB rate decision […]

By reading the FED minutes, the officials outlined plans for a December rate hike as well a further 3 rate hikes next year. This was not a real surprise; the Fed funds estimate of 77% for a 25bp hike prior to minutes being released. The FOMC officials outlined they had deep concerns over the low […]

The end of a holiday week for markets in Asia. We have to wait until Monday to see mainland China, South Korea and Hong Kong’s reaction to the US NFP’s release and also the reaction to the turn of the US Dollar Index. Markets that were opened were seeing futures initial response trading firmer as […]

Believe it or not, the latest twist is Marxism provides better sex for women than capitalism. According to the latest study, Eastern women had twice as many orgasms as Western women when comparing the Germans after the Wall fell. What they fail to explain is that you really had no entertainment other than sex. Eastern European […]

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I agree with your blog post about sharing the Declaration of Independence, and how a people have the right to declare independence. Hypothetically, what would your thoughts be if a State decided to leave our Federal Republic… would you believe that a State has the right to declare independence? Thank you for […]

QUESTION: I read a credible theory recently about China taking over US as the top superpower via economic pressures. Namely by replacing the US dollar with the Yuan as the standard currency for international trade. This shift is (supposedly) being enacted through 1) increased control over Developing countries through international lending from the New Development […]

  The late headline from North Korea yesterday spooked Stocks, Gold and Treasuries but had broadly lost most of that by the end of the Asian time zone. Both the KOPSI and Nikkei lost around -0.3% on the day with exporters and tech suffering in the afternoon session. US indices did manage to recover much […]

As you would expect the topic conversation this morning has been the German election and the re-election of Angela Merkel. The highlight was always going to be the percentages of the peripheral parties and that is what we saw. Markel’s CDU party was the big loser yet retained victory for the fourth time. This result […]