Kenneth Rogoff is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Harvard University. Rogoff calls critics of negative interest rates “ignorant” despite the fact that negative interest rates have been used since 2008 without any success. He had the audacity to say that people should not look at their short-term personal losses, but rather look at the long-term vision […]

Asian markets were marginally better on the back of oil but were awaiting the all important US jobs report after a sleepy opening until the FX market woke everyone up. A “fat-finger trade” as many were reporting it (implying a trader input the wrong price and/or quantity) saw GBP trade down to 1.1378 in seconds only […]

QUESTION: Marty; Since you wrote that central banks have been net sellers of US Treasuries for the first six months to support their currencies, others are jumping on board and are claiming nobody wants them so buy gold. Would you care to elaborate on this subject? It seems another desperate attempt by the hyperinflationists. Thank […]

Other than individual bank stocks, Friday’s EBA report had little overall effect on core markets as we heard nothing that we were not already familiar with. The Nikkei opened around 1% lower and then spent the rest of the day trying to recoup opening losses, which was pretty similar to the Hang Seng. Shanghai, on […]

(Note: The blue labels mark the change in the issues we used to create this perpetual index for long bonds) Germany sold 10-year debt at a negative yield on Wednesday of last week, becoming the first Eurozone nation to do so and setting a further milestone in the relentless fall of government bond yields around […]

QUESTION: Dear Mr Armstrong. I attended the Berlin conference and already enrolled for Orlando as well. I have a question regarding the EURO. It is obvious that the EU cannot be sustained as is. I think, so far, I do understand the decline of the EURO. We see it happen. But Germany and France are vigorously […]

We are finishing up the “Pension Crisis – The Next Nightmare,” which is a special report outlining the next global meltdown. Germany’s Federal Finance Minister Schaeuble is now openly blaming Mario Draghi for the electoral success of the AFD in Germany, which is the Alternative for Germany (In German: Alternative für Deutschland, AfD). The AFD is a […]

A lot of emails have been coming in with regard to the Panama Papers. Let me say this from the outset — Panama has been the key place to establish offshore accounts for decades. This was not a government hack. The German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung obtained the stash of records from an anonymous source and shared […]

Someone really needs to do a study on people who seem to want to rule the world yet have absolutely no clue what they are doing, which is really 98% of all politicians. What drives these people? Is it just greed to sell influence and get outrageous speaking fees? Until we end career politicians, we […]

The ECB does not reveal in detail its QE and most people have no idea that its asset-backed securities (ABS) and covered-bond purchases are actually carried out by private asset managers: ING Investment Management, Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management International, State Street Global Advisors, and Amundi. These asset managers intervene into markets on orders by the […]