"The Fed always have the fail-safe that they are data dependent. They always say they are going to act based on the data. They have actually never committed to doing anything. What is amazing is that the Fed has any credibility at all. Because I don't know why people haven't figured out this [...]
"The six months under review have seen central bankers continuing what is surely the greatest experiment in monetary policy in the history of the world. We are therefore in uncharted waters and it is impossible to predict the unintended consequences of very low interest rates, with some 30 percent of global government debt at negative [...]
"According to an analysis by Goldman's Charles Himmelberg, if rates rise by the Jamie Dimon-referenced 1 percentage point, the market value loss would be between $1 and $2.4 trillion! Putting this loss in context, even the smaller $1trn loss would be over 50% larger than the market value lost in the 1994 bond market selloff [...]
Readers of this site should already have a good sense of how economic policies affect oil prices. For the past year, this site has provided sources of information that predicted the teetering stock market and unstable oil prices. For those that have frequent the first iteration of our Facebook page, for the past [...]
"“As you move out on that spread, what you do is you create a definite bias towards producing and purchasing only those capital assets with short life expectancies. So what we’re seeing now is software is doing well; non-residential building isn’t doing well at all.” What’s valued is a quick turnaround. There’s no faith in [...]
"UPS was just the icing on the cake. Capping off a week of gloomy commentary from American companies, the package-delivery giant — which arguably has a unique view into the global economy — said it too sees "head winds" in the second half of the year." Source: businessinsider.com
"With President Obama determined not to allow the nation to believe in reality - proclaiming the error of the "doom and gloom" narrative - we found it fascinating that real Americans (as exemplified by Dallas Fed respondents) appear to see a different less 'exceptional' America." Source: zerohedge.com
"Canada posted a near-record trade deficit in May, as volumes of both exports and imports slumped. “On the year, imports are down by roughly 2 per cent, highlighting in part the difficulties the Canadian economy has faced in generating firmer internal demand,” said economist Nick Exarhos of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in a research [...]
"Construction spending declined 0.8 percent in May following a 2 percent tumble in April, the Commerce Department reported Friday. The April figure had been the biggest monthly setback in five years. The back-to-back declines in overall construction caught analysts by surprise. They had been expecting a rebound following the big drop in April. Economists, however, [...]