(Bloomberg) -- Mark Wiedman, head of international and corporate strategy at BlackRock Inc., sounded an alarm about negative interest rates on the day the Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark. “We’re slouching toward the U.S. moving into negative rate territory,” Wiedman said at the FT Future of Asset Management Summit in New York Wednesday. “Negative rates are corroding and poisoning... read more

Financial bubbles manifest three dynamics: The one we’re most familiar with is simple human greed, the desire to exploit a windfall and catch a work-free ride to riches. The second dynamic gets much less attention. Financial manias arise when there is no other more productive, profitable use for capital. And these periods occur when there is an abundance of credit available to inflate the... read more

President Trump’s Tuesday morning ultimatum that the “boneheads” at the Federal Reserve do something to materialize negative nominal interest rates again prompts the question, “Where does it all end?” In monetary debasement, a bond shakeout, and higher gold prices, of course. Your columnist has been saying this for years. But it’s a much more striking line of argument when it ru... read more

Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief executive of DoubleLine, said Thursday there will be no trade deal between the U.S. and China before the presidential election. At a presentation in London, Gundlach said President Trump is the "irresistible force" but that China has every incentive to attempt to wait out his presidency. Trump won't do a deal without intellectual property being addressed while China... read more

Jamie Dimon said that while he doubts the wave of negative interest rates in countries around the world will reach the U.S., he’s preparing J.P. Morgan Chase for the possibility anyway. “I don’t think we’ll have zero rates in the U.S., but we’re thinking about how to be prepared for it, just in the normal course of risk management,” Dimon said Tuesday at a conference in New York.... read more

(Bloomberg) -- Tackling future recessions with helicopter money risks central bank independence and should be a final resort, Bank of England policy maker Gertjan Vlieghe warned. Introducing such a policy of distributing money to the public becomes “quite a radical policy option” if the central bank also does not pay interest on reserves, he said at an event at Bloomberg’s London offices... read more

(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. China’s central bank said it will cut the amount of cash banks must hold as reserves to the lowest level since 2007, injecting liquidity into an economy facing both a domestic slowdown and trade-war headwinds. The required reserve ratio for all banks will be lowered by 0.5 perc... read more

BERLIN (Reuters) - Weaker demand from abroad drove a bigger-than-expected drop in German industrial orders in July, suggesting that struggling manufacturers could tip Europe’s biggest economy into a recession in the third quarter. Germany’s export-reliant economy is suffering from slower global growth and business uncertainty caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’... read more

(Bloomberg) -- Gold will surge above $1,600 an ounce as the Federal Reserve embarks on a quartet of interest rate cuts to combat slowing U.S. growth and the fallout from the trade war with China, according to BNP Paribas SA, which flagged prospects for a significant rise in prices in the coming months. Bullion will benefit as the Fed opts for four, 25 basis point cuts between this month and Ju... read more

A friend of mine has relatives in Germany who converted some of their not insubstantial family wealth into gold bars and buried them in the woods of Bavaria. This was at a time before negative interest rates so was not a reaction to today’s uncertain global economy, rather mistrust of the financial system in general. Yet it highlights a propensity on the part of the wealthy to hoard that is... read more