Holiday volume and poor order flow was the name of the game today and can probably be expected for the rest of the run into New Year. In Asia, China’s Shanghai lost 2.5% whilst the Nikkei made a small gain of 0.56%. In European trade, the oil market was the topic of conversation as it […]

After the fall of Rome, monks fled to a small island off the coast of Ireland known as Skellig Michael (also known as Sceilig Mhichíl).What you may not be aware of is that we actually owe a great deal to these monks. Why? They took with them books that did not survive elsewhere except among […]

First of all, someone is claiming that I put out some recommendation on DUST. I have NEVER recommended such an ETF and this appears to be a deliberate attempt to mislead people. You can search this blog; I have never made any recommendation involving any specific ETF. The motive behind this scam is curious to say […]

Dick Cheney is best known for being the head of Halliburton who then became Vice President. Cheney moved his office directly in the White House and ran the government as the former “shadow president” because Bush, Jr. couldn’t even figure out he was holding a book upside down. Cheney started the Iraq War and made sure Halliburton ran the […]

A definite Christmas theme today with most markets meandering into the festive season. Japan was closed for annual holiday (Emperor’s Birthday) and many markets were on half-day (Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines and Australia). The PBOC set mid-point for the Yuan at 6.4731 but saw the market push it to 6.478 (don’t forget the range can […]

Asia returned a quiet lacklustre day’s trading on Tuesday with Toshiba alone being the reason the whole market had edged lower. The stock sank an additional 12.3%, extending Monday’s 9.8% decline having stated it is expected to post a 550B loss in yen ($4.54Bln) for the fiscal year. In Shanghai and Hong Kong, we saw marginal […]

QUESTION:  Hi Mr. Armstrong! Thank you for all that you do in keeping me sane by making sense of certain things that I can not seem to comprehend. Here’s one matter that still boggles my mind and heart. I am from the Adriatic coast of Montenegro and have a passion for everything associated with olives. […]

In Asia, the Nikkei opened heavy on the back of a weak U.S. closing on Friday. The continued sell-off in oil prices also gave up ground after Toshiba’s stock declined 9.8%. Meanwhile in China, reports were running around the street that additional stimulus were soon to be announced and encouraged a firmer Shanghai Exchange (+1.7%). […]

Something very interesting is unfolding. Included in the new year-end spending bill was a waiver of the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA), which had been implemented during the late 1980s when the Japanese were buying everything. They claimed to have focused on buying U.S. farmland, but it also applied to buying trophy […]

  QUESTION: Marty, Regarding the brief clip of Larry Summer’s opining on why economic declines are hard to predict, I was struck by the 2nd part of his explanation, which seemed to me to indicate that economists would not want to forecast a decline (even if they could) because it would set expectations of a decline […]