After a reasonably quiet session for the US markets (when many had hoped the DOW would break the 20k level) Asia had little chance of making much ground. The Hang Seng took most of the wind out of their sales with prices down around -0.8% with many large caps lower on year end profit-taking and […]

The Scandinavian countries Sweden, Denmark and Norway are regarded as a pioneer in the the effort to eliminate money and move totally electronic. Denmark closed its final Mint outsourced the operation to Finland. This means that there is no coinage in the three states struck anymore. In this war on cash, about 20% of all transactions were […]

Today, we saw the first decline for the Nikkei in eleven trading session despite better than expected Trade data (Estimated Y227.4 but actual release Y152.5bn). The Japan Index closed down just 9pts at 19,391 but breaks the winning streak with the currency trading back below the 117 level. BOJ starts its two day meeting today […]

QUESTION:  Hi Martin I have a question I hope you can find time to answer. It appears we are heading into dark times with regards to the convergence of all of these cycles. We have government hunting every penny, we have civil war heating up between the left and right, we have revolution against government, […]

Merkel is already adopting the Obama strategy by blaming Putin for any potential loss in the election. She is going much further, perhaps because she grew up in Eastern Germany and sees no problem grabbing more power. Her party, the CDU , claims that the ambitions of Vladimir Putin are to defeat her in the […]

The key conversation was always going to be surrounding the Federal Reserve rate decision today despite any data releases. In Japan we saw the release of the Tankan (sentiment survey) which, at 10, repeated the same level as previous release as the Nikkei closed almost unchanged on the day. The Hang Seng was a similar […]

The Nikkei continued its march in todays trading adding an additional +0.5% with the Yen behaving. The consensus appears to be happy the FED will raise which will likely hit the currency even more and have positive effects upon the Nikkei. The Shanghai responded to better than expected Retail Sales (10.8 v’s expectations of 10.1%) […]

This week will all be about the Federal Reserve and the outlook for rates into next. The strip is pricing in additional moves already but it is the long end that is having a worrying impact on many dealers. Obviously, the recent curve movement is music for the (US) banks and insurance companies but will […]

I previously reported that Germany was teaching refugees how to get lucky with German girls. The education effort is continuing. In class, one tried the line “I love you. Can I sleep over at your place?” The professional lines being taught are  “I really love the scent of your perfume,” or “You have a beautiful voice.” […]

Mario Draghi, extended the European Central Bank (ECB) $ 1.74 trillion bond purchase program to support the economy by nine months to at least the end of December 2017. This is far longer than most economists had expected. However, the monthly volume of currently €80 billion euros will drop to €60 billion euros from April 2017 […]