psychology

To me, much of the argument about whether or not markets are efficient misses the point. There are conditions, it seems, under which markets seem to do a great job of managing risk, keeping the cost of capital reasonable, and allocating…

While data is difficult to come by, there are signs that the sharp drop in consumer confidence since the federal government shutdown (see post) is translating into weaker consumer spending.

Everything I have read says that the U.S. is going to bomb Syria. The only question is how to win over the American people in the court of public opinion. So that's where the Göring quote comes in. Basically, he's saying that dictatorships…

I don't put a lot of stock into economic sentiment surveys but the time series of this particular survey, the European sentiment indicator caught my eye. It suggests a recovery in Europe is almost here.

MPT is based on a number of assumptions, some of which are more restrictive than others. The question is whether the sum of those assumptions is so far off the mark that it renders the entire theory absolutely useless. Effectively the…

Osborne has said in the past that his austerity approach is the right one and has pointed to a 2010 paper on government debt and growth by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff as evidence his approach is the right one. Given the recent furore…

I hate to sound like a broken record here, but I believe the anti-austerians have it all wrong about the politics of austerity. Everywhere I look, there is some analysis that takes the statements of policy makers and big investors as…

The reality of course, is that euro zone governments do have to worry about losing market favour. They cannot rely on the central bank as a debt buyer of last resort the way the Japanese, the British or the Americans can. If, for whatever…

In the first paragraph of my book A Demon of Our Own Design (Wiley, 2007) I observe that “You don't deliberately obliterate hundreds of billions of dollars of investor money. And that is at the heart of this book – it is going to happen…

Last year, I was bullish on European shares and this proved the right call as they modestly outperformed. As this year begins, I am doing a lot of thinking about my much-delayed "Ten Surprises for 2011" post. And as I compile list items,…