quantitative easing

The problem in a nutshell is that the U.S. is the world's reserve currency. And so, other countries are forced to adhere to Fed dictates in a liquidity crisis because everyone is hoarding dollars, trying to maintain their supply of…

The latest Fed confab at Jackson Hole is demonstrating that central bankers were so keen to avoid taking much blame for the global financial crisis that they also failed to learn critical lessons from it. That lapse in turn is directly…

In a fashion similar to what became known as the "Asian Contagion" in the late 90s, the current stress in emerging economies has been spreading. One of the nations to experience financial stress recently has been Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s…

One often hears the refrain "the market is not the economy", but what does that really mean? I am going to explain it in my terms here in the context of the global reflation trade - EM meltdown paradox.

Emerging markets currencies are getting hammered across the board today on the back of the FOMC minutes. Many are touching multi-year or even all-time lows. This provides further confirmation that the Fed's recent monetary stimulus effort…

If you look at the last two posts on this site from Marc Chandler and from Sober Look the connection between Fed tapering and money flows is clear. Hot money is flowing out of emerging markets and into Europe.

For those who don't watch these currencies on a daily basis, these sell-offs seem to happen in spurts - almost at random. But there is a pattern here, particularly in the past few months. Investors are dumping these currencies during…

Long-term interest rates are largely a reflection of expected future short-term future interest rates plus a term premium. So when you see yields move up, it reflects either an increase in term premiums from uncertainty or a change in the…

I spoke at a Euromoney conference on inflation-linked products last year. My thesis at the time that deflation is the real problem and that inflation isn't going to be a concern - which has largely proved right - was out of step with most…

With many observers expecting the Fed to taper in September, disappointment that there was nothing in the statement to support such ideas has seen the dollar fall and the stocks and bonds traded higher.