Markets

One of the lead stories at Bloomberg this morning is an article about foreigners shying away from “financing the US government”. And the conclusion of this article is that it could mean higher interest rates in the US. Is this conclusion…

A lot of people are saying the rally in shares since early November that took the Dow over 20,000 is exhausted. That may be the case. However, short of a 1987-style crash, we’re going to have see a recession before shares retreat…

I have heard some commentators say that the concern over a strong dollar is overblown. I don't think it is. In the context of heightened tensions with China, the strength of the US dollar will be a key issue affecting Asia in particular. I…

As the Trump economic team comes together, their economic vision is also coming together. In the last post, I laid out some overarching themes I am seeing from them on the hopes that reducing taxes and regulation will increase productive…

With the fed having raised interest rates for the second time in ten years, in an environment in which US growth looks pretty good, we should expect more hikes to come. The question is whether the economy can withstand the hikes and what…

This summer – when stock markets across the globe began to rally after their post-Brexit collapse, bond markets put in a top. US 10-year yields bottomed at 1.35% on July 8th. And in the time since, they have zoomed to over 2.5%. In short,…

Between the first quarter of 2013 and the end of 2015, London property prices rose rapidly, the exchange rate appreciated, and the current account deficit widened. This column argues that the rise of the pound was in fact a financial…

For managers of money, the post-crisis low growth world has had major implications for asset allocation strategies. Assumptions about returns are greatly affected by the both monetary easing used to counteract the slowing and the yield…

I haven’t posted much recently - mostly because there haven’t been many developments economically that change my macro view. We still live in a slow growth world, where recession is not the base case n the US, the UK, or the eurozone. And…

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…