It’s safe to say that didn’t go precisely as planned. Stocks closed in the red Wednesday despite a decidedly dovish Fed statement, and frankly it’s hard to know exactly what to make of that. To be sure, the outcome was expected, but even Esther George was on board as the Kansas City Fed chief withdr
Overseas markets got a bit of a breather Wednesday from the safe haven bid as everyone remained stuck in suspended animation ahead of the Fed decision. Come to think of it, that’s ironic because the Fed itself seems to be frozen. We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about central banks today and tomorro
With all eyes on Brexit, the market seems to have temporarily forgotten about the biggest risk factor of all: China. Understanding the country’s capital markets, FX regime, and banking system can be a daunting task, but it’s worth the time to do a bit of research because it truly is important to com
It’s probably safe to say that there’s now a palpable sense of anxiety hanging over global markets. We previewed the flight to safety here yesterday, noting that Brexit risk was driving investors into supposedly “riskless” assets and haven currencies. Currencies like the yen, which is trying pretty
Last month, Goldman put the exclamation point on a relentless move higher for crude prices when the bank wrote the following in a widely circulated note: “The physical rebalancing of the oil market has finally started. While supply and demand surprised to the upside commensurately in 1Q16, leaving t
Ok, so Microsoft bought LinkedIn. If you picked up some LNKD back in February after the disastrous Q4 call, good for you. Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about the trends driving markets on Monday because understanding the ebb and flow here is going to be critical over the next
One of the key themes I try to communicate to investors is that in the current environment, you simply can’t understand markets if you don’t understand geopolitics. This has always been the case to a certain extent, but it’s arguably more true today than ever. The Saudis, for instance, are wielding
“Fear and greed [used to be] a continuum, allowing for an ebb and flow with continuous price discovery and availability,” Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow wrote on Thursday. “What we have now is pedal to the metal front-running of central banks and the nagging fear that when the fun ends there won’t be a
It’s a perfect storm. An abysmal NFP print in the US, a worsening outlook for global growth, jitters over whether Britain will vote to leave the EU, and billionaires effectively coming out of retirement to buy gold and make “a bunch of big bearish bets.” And then there’s the lingering threat that Ch
It really shouldn’t come as any surprise to market watchers that billionaire, philanthropist, Democratic donor, and breaker of the British pound George Soros has turned bearish on a few things. After all, Soros’ views on the prospects for China have been well known for months. Earlier this year, Sor
