With the exception of the bond sell-off yesterday, the markets behaved reasonably well – even in thin summer trading. This comes after Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart’s comments that the Fed is poised to raise rates. Today, we saw a mixed Asian session for equities with both the Nikkei and HSI ending with small gains (+0.45%) whilst the […]

None of the core Asian Equity Indices managed to trade in positive territory today: Nikkei (down 0.19%), Shanghai (-1.12%), and HSI (-0.92%). We saw weakness again in Asian currencies, and this mood worked its way in Europe as well. The first trading day in the Greek stock market after its official closure saw a 17% […]

QUESTION: Thanks for the latest posts.I have 3 queries if you care to consider them. Some years ago you used to say $5000 and $12000 when contemplating gold’s upside.Now the latter seems out of reach.Can you indicate what caused you to change your mind? Secondly, regarding a possible Republican Presidential victory, does this correlate with a […]

The asset class within tangible assets in the immovable category is none other than real estate. This greatly varies from one location to the next. We face two main problems with real estate because we are facing a major Sovereign Debt Crisis. First is the fact we have a problem with leverage reflected within interest rates. While many tout […]

A group of hedge funds, who hold a large proportion of Puerto Rico’s debt, are now demanding for Puerto Rico’s government to fire teachers, collect more taxes, and reform labor laws, as the U.S. territory contemplates default. This is the battle between bondholders vs. the people, and it is not going to end nicely. While […]

Asia saw a dramatic 8.5% collapse today, and London began their session today looking at Asia. European futures were all obviously lower and did not look back from the open. The U.S. session accelerated the fall that strengthened the recent flight to quality by helping to cement the ultimate peak in government debt in short-term rates. […]

Commodities and their currencies continued to suffer this past week to complete what has been probably the worst week in a very long time. Oil lost another 1% leaving TWI at $47.95, whilst Brent lost 1.5% last seen at $54.45. Natural Gas is still unable to show any signs of recovery and was last trading at […]

Well if you ever needed PROOF that gold is not money, but rather simply an asset class, all you need to do is look at what governments are doing. They are hunting for anything of value. We are likely going to see a migration of assets from Europe to the USA, as took place prior and during World War […]

Asian equities did not stand much of a chance from the open as Apple had taken it on the chin upon releasing their results! A 7% decline in after hours trading wiped around $66Bln off the share price and put Asian markets on the defensive from the start. By lunchtime, the Nikkei, the Hang Seng, […]

Most precious metals traders breathed a sigh of relief this morning when they awoke to see that gold was not massacred in Asia (again) and was almost unchanged from the New York close. That said, we did not see a bounce-back after yesterday’s $40 decline of any significance, which will leave traders weary of further declines. […]