credit cards

Based on the data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis here is a single chart that shows credit growth in the US is continuing to decline while the Fed's balance sheet is expanding.

In spite of some positive economic signals out of the Eurozone, the area continues to struggle with credit growth. The latest loan growth measures still look quite bleak. We may however be seeing the first signs of the bottoming out of…

By Sober Look The US Congress is nearing a compromise on the issue of student loan interest rates. Apparently loan rates will be changed from fixed to floating with an overall cap (see story). While rates are important, there is a much…

We learned today that China's trade volume unexpectedly 3.1% year-on-year in June with both imports and exports down. This unexpectedly weak data point highlights the risk of growth deceleration in emerging markets generally and China…

There are perhaps more myths about QE than almost any other monetary policy instrument. Here are five of the most pernicious QE myths.

One of the key risks of course is the size and health of the shadow banking system. Fitch in particular has been ringing some alarm bells with respect to China's private credit growth.

In spite of the divergence in the chart, the "loans create deposits" axiom still stands - deposits are still created through bank credit. Two key developments explain much of this divergence without violating these principles.

Europe has been postponing the recapitalisation of its banking sector. This column argues that it has been doing so for far too long. Without such a recapitalisation, the danger is that economic stagnation will continue for a long period,…

One of the most contentious topics in America is the impact of the Federal Reserve’s policy of “Quantitative Easing” – otherwise known as ‘QE’. The Federal Reserve has committed to spending $85 billion every month buying a wide range of…

This is a more in-depth follow-up piece to the free article I wrote yesterday. In the wake of the recent Ira Sohn conference and the revelation that hedge funds are starting to short housing-related Canadian stocks, there is a lot of bubble…