Commentary

Today, I am not going to write about a specific topic but rather put together some random thoughts on the direction of the global economy. Next week, I will have some big things to say about the Fed and it's upcoming meeting. So I thought…

Despite all the talk of recovery in Europe, the data suggest that the improvement in Europe is uneven at best now. The core has moved into a cyclical upturn but a lot of work remains in places like Italy and Greece. Today's data points…

Over the past few years, investors who have expected aggressive monetary policy to produce high levels of consumer price inflation and have invested accordingly have been disappointed. The right question goes to why consumer price inflation…

The U.S. Job Situation Summary was released this morning at 830EDT and the headline number of 169,000 jobs added to non-farm payrolls was just below consensus. Moreover, the unemployment rate dipped to 7.3%. Nonetheless, the reaction to the…

Abenomics has been very successful in goosing the Japanese economy thus far. However, the question remains whether this success will be short-lived or durable. I believe it is likely to be short-lived because of the policy constraints that…

I have been saying for two years now that Nokia is toast because it has hitched its wagon to an also-ran in the smartphone race. The only out for the company is a takeover by Microsoft and now this is done. Will it work though?

The gain in equity prices is now outpacing profits at a rate not see since the heady dot-com days. In fact, on a GAAP accounting basis, profits have been falling. I believe this creates a dangerous situation in view of rising interest rates…

One often hears the refrain "the market is not the economy", but what does that really mean? I am going to explain it in my terms here in the context of the global reflation trade - EM meltdown paradox.

I am alarmed at how quickly economic and market volatility has spread throughout the emerging markets. However, I remain positive about the big picture global macro outlook because recent data show that Europe, the US and now China are…

In many different emerging markets, the economy has unexpectedly weakened. We are seeing downturns everywhere from Mexico and Brazil in Latin America to Indonesia, India and Thailand in Asia. At this point there is no common thread on why…