COMMENT: Dear Martin, The hunting for taxes is a non stop game in Portugal. Now, the new government, decided to increase fuel taxes as they said because “oil price is going down and government is getting less VAT due to lower prices.”. This was THE OFFICIAL government explanation to add a special tax on fuel! […]

The Nikkei re-opened after yesterday’s public holiday but again was sold from the open. The key banks suffered yet more liquidations eventually closing Mitsubishi UFJ -2.3%, SMFG -4.1%, Mizuho -3.7% and the main Nobel House (Nomura) was down 9.2%. Exporters also suffered Toyota, Nissan and Sharp all down between 6 and 10%. The Nikkei closed […]

It must feel like there is no end in sight for the Japanese stock decline as futures continued their decline despite the cash being closed for a public holiday. We did see the return of the Hang Seng with a -3.8% decline after celebrating the Lunar New Year. Again, oil was the top “excuse” having seen […]

QUESTION: Marty, at the Conference you said we could conclude this in the first quarter if we get the alignment. It does not look like we will get the alignment since gold is up and the Dow is down. This is why you have been saying this looked like it was postponing into 2017? ANSWER: […]

The fuse has been lit. The world economy is in serious trouble and we have the worst possible people at the helm. You have Obama who wants to double the funding for the SEC and CFTC to go after the banks because he smells blood. He also wants to add a $10 tax to oil […]

The Nikkei was again under pressure with the Index closing down 2.4% with financial leading the pack. Shares in Mitsui, SMFG and Mitsubishi UFJ were all down between 4 and 7% on the day. Investors and the street all voicing concerns about the potential profitability given the BOJ’s vision of negative interest rates and the surge […]

Iran has begun to sell oil, but in euros. They think this is some sort of blow to the USA, but in fact, they are taking on the currency risk of the euro. This could be interesting for when the euro resumes its decline they will actually be undercutting everyone else who is pricing in […]

European banks are in a real crisis. They have been decimated by fines and trading after they tried to mimic their New York competition without the same expertise. Then they had to use euro debt of member states as reserves. Next came the rising taxes and the push to enforce taxation which has seriously harmed […]

Overnight, we saw one of the largest declines in a long time when the Nikkei closed down 5.4%. Exporters (Toyota, Nissan, Sony) were all off around 6.5%. The 10yr JGB (Japanese Government Bonds) traded below 0% for the first time ever. The currency gained 1.8% to trade 114.20 during the European trading session. With the […]

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 […]