Currency debasement. Asset price inflation. Booms, bubbles, and busts. Yes, folks, central bankers have succeeded at making full hash of the world at large. This goes for the Federal Reserve too. Tracing back recent financial disasters we find the mortgage meltdown coincided with the Fed’s interest rate raising cycle. The Fed had dropped rates following the dot com bust and, in return... read more

Prayers for a sudden return to dovish monetary policies have been answered, and now investors are living with the aftermath: a world awash with $8.6 trillion in negative-yielding debt. That’s one reason money managers are wading once more into the fringes of fixed-income markets across the globe. Consider the action over the past week: Serial defaulter Ecuador managed to sell $1 bil... read more

When critics point to Japan’s debt-to-GDP ratio of over 200%, Japan’s defenders are quick to say that most of the Japanese debt is owned by the Japanese themselves in insurance companies, banks, pension plans and personal portfolios, not to mention the Bank of Japan. There’s truth in this. Japan has a highly homogenous culture. The Japanese are all in the same lifeboat rowing in the... read more

As the demand for precious metals shows some life once again, sales of the U.S. Mint Silver Eagles jumped in January. Not only have Gold, and Silver Eagle sales increased, so have the precious metals prices. In the past two months, gold and silver prices have gained 7% and 11% respectively. Today, gold reached $1,320, while silver topped $16. While January sales of Silver Eagles fell to a l... read more

Bond King Jeffrey Gundlach says we just got 'the most recessionary signal' yet Consumer confidence at present remains strong, but future expectations are plummeting, according to the Conference Board's latest readings. Such wide gaps often portend significant economic slowdowns ahead. "The most recessionary signal at present is consumer future expectations relative to current conditions. It'... read more

Remember the Powell of last year? You know, the one that tried to convince us that there “could be no macroeconomic stability without financial stability?” And this Powell was not concerned about financial stability in terms of making sure the stock market never went down, but rather just the opposite. On June 20th, 2018 Powell brought to our attention that; “Indeed, the fact that the... read more

Just like any treasure hunt, the details are sketchy, a modern-day version of a deserted island map, with an X marking the spot. But here’s what we know. Back in 2010, famed treasure hunter Tommy Thompson told his girlfriend to show up to a self-storage facility in Fort Lauderdale. She had briefcases—they can’t recall how many—holding 150 pounds in gold coins. Five hundred coins, to b... read more

Gold’s dimming supply prospects have caught the eye of one billionaire. “For the first time in my life, I bought gold because it is a good hedge,” Sam Zell, the founder of Equity Group Investments, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Supply is shrinking and that is going to have a positive impact on the price.” Spending on new mines began to dry up after prices of the metal tumbl... read more

Corporations globally will increasingly default on debt as economies slow while borrowing costs and political strife escalate, according to a quarterly survey by the International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers. The group’s credit default index sank in the fourth quarter to the most negative reading in more than nine years, worsening sharply from the prior quarter and indicati... read more

Federal prosecutors unveiled charges in an international stock-trading scheme that involved hacking into the Securities and Exchange Commission's EDGAR corporate filing system. The scheme allegedly netted $4.1 million for fraudsters from the U.S., Russia and Ukraine. Using 157 corporate earnings announcements, the group was able to execute trades on material nonpublic information. Most of thos... read more