The current European Central Bank’s asset purchasing program had it buying $80 billion in bonds per month until April 2017. No one expected this to be the end of the program, but the specifics of the new program would determine how markets would react. The media likes to put every central bank movem
Today the market extended its gains to extraordinary levels. Goldman Sachs has been behind much of the latest Dow gains as its stock is 6% off its all-time high it set in October of 2007. The Dow is price weighted so each move in Goldman Sachs matters a great deal since the stock is in
According an article on CNBC, ad experts do not think Snapchat poses a threat to Facebook anytime soon. Facebook must disagree with these experts because it tried to copy Snapchat’s stories feature with Instagram and Messenger adopting it. I think Snapchat’s growth is sustainable over the long term
The Fed’s balance sheet needs to be studied extensively because of the unique policies the Fed has put in place in the past few years. The difference between what’s likely to happen and what’s expected to happen is getting larger as we approach Trump’s presidency. It’s going to be interesting to see
Next week the Fed will make a decision on whether to hike rates or keep them steady. Since the last time I wrote about this topic, the chance of a rate hike has fallen from 100% to 92.7%. The idea that the chance of a rate hike is 100% was over the top given the
As I projected Matteo Renzi lost the referendum. The margin of his defeat was more than the polls had indicated. He was down by the mid-single digits in the last polls, with about 20% undecided. “No” ended up winning the election by almost 20 points. The trend continues towards populist candidates w
The technicalities of the Italian election are not important, in my opinion, because they don’t accurately characterize the reason why Italians are voting. They want change and reforms to their government; however, they don’t trust the current system run by bankers and politicians. Because the “No”
December 4th is the Italian election which means on Monday we will know the results and possibly the implications of them. Those predicting the “No” vote will win the election are calling for an increased likelihood of Italy leaving the Euro currency and possibly the European Union. The details of h
Interest rates are rising at an accelerated clip. This leads me to question how long the asset bubbles can last. Currently we are in the midst of a sector rotation. Technology and biotech stocks have been underperforming and financials, energy, and industrials have been increasing. The logic behind
I want to continue my discussion of Steven Mnuchin to fully contextualize his impact on the Trump administration. With the decision to hire Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, we have received a great amount of information on how the next four years will look. I will explain the two possible directions t
