2016

This is going to be a quick post to update you on where I think things are headed now that we have the two final candidates for UK Prime Minister. My overall view continues to be that the base case is for a moderate negative economic,…

At this juncture, the leading candidates for British Prime Minister are both women on either side of the referendum vote. However, both are saying they will guide the UK out of the European Union. Meanwhile Chancellor George Osborne’s…

UK Chancellor Osborne has now abandoned his 2020 budget surplus target. Combine this with the dovish statements by Bank of England governor Mark Carney yesterday and you can see some serious policy changes in play to minimize the near-term…

This is a quick run through of the post-Brexit vote decision tree. The opportunities and constraints after the UK vote to leave the EU are now coming into view. It is clear that the UK is likely to leave the EU given not only statements by…

The unexpected ‘Leave’ victory in the recent referendum on EU membership introduces considerable political risk by elevating tail risk scenarios to reasonable worst case status. However, in a global economy that is already slow and already…

As I start this post, I am naming it "Why I'm on US recession watch despite 2% growth". I don't know if that name will stick when I publish this piece; nonetheless, that is the theme I am trying to get across. When I look at the economic…

I've been following the Fed's forward guidance recently and, frankly, I find it confused. On the one hand, it was a clear mistake to have raised rates in December. We see this now in retrospect due to the tightening of financial conditions…

Perhaps we are misreading the Fed’s intentions going forward because multiple Fed officials are signaling the Fed’s intention to raise interest rates multiple times in 2016 and 2017. And while rate hikes are usually considered tightening,…

The extended period of low growth following the Global Crisis was denoted the ‘New Normal’ by some. This column argues that the period is still ongoing, and would be more usefully described as the ‘New Abnormal’. Far from being an…

Since the Global Crisis, interest rates in many advanced economies have been low and, in many cases, are expected to remain low for some time. Low interest rates help economies recover and can enhance banks’ balance sheets and performance,…