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Today is the time to update you on how my 2014 surprises are faring and why. Just to remind you, the surprise list is based on Byron Wien’s list of ten surprises which he has been conducting for the last thirty years. Surprises are events…

This week’s economic and market themes piece is going to be a little shorter than usual because I have covered a lot of the major topics earlier in the week. United States. Let’s start with the US. The jobs data today showed 208,000 jobs…

Earlier today, I had an interesting back and forth on Twitter with Edward Hugh, Claus Vistesen and Matthew Lynn about Europe and the ECB. I think we all believe there is more pain to come for Europe and likely there will be writedowns. But…

Topics for today: Tail risk from Ukraine is increasing, giving rise to investment opportunity Argentina is still a basket case US housing will not add appreciably to a US growth acceleration I think the big news in the markets is…

This week’s theme post will be exclusively about Greece because I think the Greek bond deal is emblematic of trends we see in markets and the real economy. And of course, the big news in the past few days is Greece. Its 5-year government…

Yesterday, I began my Ten Surprises List. As a reminder, the surprise list is loosely based off Byron Wien’s list of ten surprises which he has conducting doing at Blackstone and Morgan Stanley for the last thirty years. Wien defines his…

Ukraine's sovereign CDS spread is approaching the high reached right before the Russian bailout was announced. The currency is nearing the pre-bail-out lows.

By Marc Chandler The US debt ceiling looms. The House Republicans are still formulating their strategy. Treasury Secretary Lew has said his ability to maneuver will be exhausted by February 27. While this sounds like ample time to avoid a…

We appear to be on the cusp of a more serious crisis in Argentina, as things are moving from bad to worse. Spot ARS has dropped as much as 20% earlier today, while the implied “blue chip” FX rate has fallen nearly 10% over the past two…

My view remains that Europe is in an incipient but unstable recovery vulnerable to exogenous shocks. However, I do not believe this recovery means that crisis is over. Rather, this is a lull before continued stagnation forces Europe to make…