LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Central bank support forpandemic-hit economies looks to endure well past the recovery inoutput, leaving investors little option but to keep chasing aparabolic bull market until the fabled "punch bowl" iseventually removed. William McChesney Martin - the longest serving FederalReserve chief between 1951 and 1970 - is credited with thefamous quote about the... read more

Rep. Ro Khanna, Silicon Valley’s lawmaker in Congress, on Thursday proposed a bill aimed at bulking up the Internal Revenue Service’s enforcement tools and ability to crack down on tax evasion. The legislation, if passed, would infuse the IRS with $70 billion between fiscal 2022 and 2031 to help the agency hire additional staff to audit individuals making more than $1 million in total in... read more

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen praised the European Central Bank for its “swift and decisive” response to the pandemic in a call with President Christine Lagarde that addressed ways to boost growth and jobs. Yellen “commended the ECB’s swift and decisive policy response to the pandemic and discussed policy tools to foster growth and job creation in both Europe and the United States,... read more

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George said the US central bank was still “far away” from achieving its goals and it was premature to start a debate on scaling back its massive bond-buying program. “I continue to think it is too soon to try to speculate about that,” George said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Until we see the path to getting past this virus, it w... read more

While the White House termed Biden’s discussion with 10 Republicans who pitched a downsized relief effort as “productive,” the Democratic president told the senators their plan did not go far enough. Biden told the group “that he will not slow down work on this urgent crisis response, and will not settle for a package that fails to meet the moment,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psak... read more

Futures contracts for silver surged higher early Monday morning as the Reddit-fueled boom in highly shorted stocks appears to be spilling over into the metals market. Spot silver prices jumped 10.4% to $29.70 an ounce shortly before 8:30 a.m. ET.. If this holds, it would be the biggest one-day pop in silver on NYMEX since a 13% spike in March 2009. The metal briefly hit $30.03 to register it... read more

Investor Peter Boockvar is calling the Reddit rebellion “another epic parabolic bubble.” In a research note out this week, he warns the mania into trades from GameStop to American Airlines will ultimately go bust. “Let’s break down the investment strategy: Find the most shorted stocks, buy calls, write about it, buy the stocks and jam it higher,” the Bleakley Advisory Group chie... read more

Hedge-Fund Titans Lose Billions to Reddit Traders Running Amok (Bloomberg) -- For once, Main Street is beating Wall Street. In a matter of weeks, two hedge-fund legends -- Steve Cohen and Dan Sundheim -- have suffered bruising losses as amateur traders banded together to take on some of the world’s most sophisticated investors. In Cohen’s case, he and Ken Griffin ended up rushing... read more

Jan 27 (Reuters) - Gold prices slipped on Wednesday as the dollar climbed, with investors' looking forward to a U.S. Federal Reserve policy statement for clues on approach to monetary policy the central bank is likely to adopt. Spot gold fell 0.6% to $1,838.50 per ounce by 1218 GMT. U.S. gold futures eased 0.7% to $1,838.00. "To drive gold towards the upper end o... read more

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice. “Spend as much as you can and then spend a little bit more.” At an economic forum last week, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to... read more