United States

This is a brief update on the US economic trajectory given the most recent data and in anticipation of tomorrow’s jobs report. In July, given the persistent low level of jobless claims, I upgraded my expectations for monthly non-farm…

This is the first time I am doing this, so let’s see how much value it adds. I thought I would quickly run through a number of countries in the news and give my perspective on the macro picture in each. I am just going to give a summary…

The big news today was the ECB’s decision to lower interest rates 10 basis points to 0.05% and its simultaneous decision to engage in a form of quantitative easing using the asset-backed market as a vehicle. While these measures are…

The gist of the piece here is that, while I see a cyclical recovery that is gathering pace, the Achilles heel of the recovery from a sustainability perspective is wage growth. To the degree the Fed normalizes policy now before wage growth…

Welcome back to Credit Writedowns! Labor Day is behind us now and I intend to have a much more regular posting schedule going forward. But the lack of posts has given me some time to reflect on the global macro situation without the need…

Despite the title, this is not a mono-themed post but more of a highlight of recent news and data and their importance in interpreting the direction of the economy and potential effect on markets. I do want to concentrate on European and US…

Before I get into the details today, I want to note that going forward, I may not have the bandwidth to be able to post on a daily basis. I am going to try. But there are definitely going to be weekdays going forward where I won’t be able…

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…

Below is the video of Richard Nixon closing the gold window exactly 43 years ago today. Hat tip to Raja Korman

I am very interested in the intersection of private debt, financial fragility and economic growth because I believe this intersection is pivotal in understanding whether the secular forces which led to the Great Financial Crisis have been…