liquidity

Overnight, financial market sentiment turned around pretty dramatically. The China A-Share market sold-off by 3.3% and approached the vicinity of recent lows. Fears started to mount that Chinese central bankers were going to be slow to ease monetary policy based on continued inflation concerns. After Asian markets closed, the People’s Bank of China announced that…

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facebook

We all knew it was coming, a spectacular IPO at a high valuation, for one of the world’s most innovative and intriguing companies. After many years of capturing young people’s internet time around the world, Facebook is moving closer to an IPO, reportedly valued at a $100 billion. The company may potentially file before year-end…

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black friday

A number of Black Friday retail sales surveys were released over the weekend. All measures pointed to a robust start to the holiday shopping season. Strong data were received from the National Retail Federation, ShopperTrak, and Comscore. None of the individual sales measures are completely reliable, but the collective strength is likely indicative of a…

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samba rio

For almost a decade, emerging markets have been in a bull market with high growth rates, declining interest rates, and capital inflows. During the financial crisis, emerging markets were hit like financial assets around the world, and capital flowed out of the asset class. Over the course of 2010, and most of 2011, emerging market…

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house

Housing is slowly and steadily showing signs of a bottom. Housing permits are required in most states before a housing start and are a leading indicator of overall housing demand. Housing permits improved to 653k which represents a 10.8% increase from September and a 17.6% improvement vs. last year. Both single-family and multifamily permits improved.…

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chased by bull

I’ve been writing about the impossibility of the ECB running appropriate monetary policy for 17 different nations. The dilemma couldn’t be more evident when contrasting the economy of Spain with the economy of Germany. Spain actually has less sovereign debt relative to GDP than does Germany. The problem for Spain isn’t the level of debt…

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The Rogue Economist, located in Canada, wrote a provocative piece discussing the similarities between the USD/Yuan peg and the EMU construct. I agree with Rogue that currency pegs and distortions lead to predictable real world economic outcomes that become evident in the balance of trade. Many financial market participants confuse cause and effect when identifying…

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mickey mouse

Long live Mickey Mouse! Walt Disney reported strong results last night which reflected broad strength across the economy. Disney has diversified exposure to discretionary spending with its parks, media properties, and international businesses. A consistent theme through earnings season has been broadly solid corporate earnings and DIS is another example of this from a large…

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china prices

Overnight, China released inflation data for October, which came down as expected and declined meaningfully from the previous month. Chinese consumer inflation, which includes food and energy prices, rose 6.1% in September, and 5.5% in October. This data shouldn’t be a complete surprise because China is on a tightening campaign with higher interest rates, lower…

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taxi

Bloomberg recently reported that New York taxi medallions changed hands this October for a record $1 million. There have been a number of reports over the years demonstrating that investment in taxi medallions outperformed stocks, bonds, real estate, and other financial assets. While this may be true, the yield has clearly come way down making…

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