Japan

If China wants to accumulate reserves, it will have to buy US Treasuries, even if not every month. Japanese institutional investors are thought to be attracted by the high yields available in the US Treasury market.  But, the wider…

The investment climate is being shaped by two powerful forces.  First is the very accommodative policy stance.  In addition to the accommodative monetary policy, fiscal policy is also supportive. 

Quick hit here. I have been banging on about lowflation, repeatedly suggesting it is here to stay. The Fed, on the other hand begs to differ and is pre-emptively normalizing rates, as a result. No matter how you look at this, there’s a…

Recent statements by monetary authorities in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom tells us rate hikes are possible in all three this year. This trio of English-speaking G7 nations is at a different phase of the monetary policy…

Only during the Great Recession did nominal GDP break out of a tight range – and then, it did so to the downside. We are nowhere near the top of the range now, nor should we expect to be anytime soon.

Yesterday’s post on the failure of Japan’s monetary policy experiment drew some favourable commentary from a prominent macroeconomist that I want to run by you. The gist of his insight is that we have long been living in an age of an excess…

Yesterday’s most interesting headline in the Wall Street Journal was “The World’s Most Radical Experiment in Monetary Policy Isn’t Working”. After reading it, the right questions to ask are “why isn’t the policy working?” and “what does…

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…

The last few days have made clear that monetary policy is having less and less impact as time goes along.In particular, the latest salvos from the Bank of Japan smack of desperation, as if BOJ Governor Kuroda has decided to throw everything…

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…