Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
As most people with access to a TV — living under a rock and otherwise — are aware, US debt was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s late Friday night from AAA to AA+.
Since the US credit rating downgrade the Chinese yuan is flirting with 17-year highs.
[Read more...]Earlier this week our friend Barry Ritholtz, editor of The Big Picture blog and regular speaker for the Agora Financial Investment Symposium, posted a recent Dilbert cartoon writing, “I wish I had this for the Agora conference — they would have loved it!”
How right he is!
When preparing for the world’s complete financial meltdown, you can’t forget the defensive basics. You can check out the cartoon below. It came to our attention from his original post over at The Big Picture.
[Read more...]Much like how China has surpassed the US in so many manufacturing and economic milestones — and South Africa in gold production — the world’s most populous country is now poised to topple India as nation with the strongest gold demand in the world.
[Read more...]Sure, the US has its own huge debt problem, with a bit of a “ceiling” issue which urgently needs to be resolved before all hell breaks loose. Perhaps that’s all the more reason to appreciate a catchy and upbeat song about a crisis elsewhere. In this case, the euro zone, where Portugal, Ireland, and Greece have already received bailouts and Spain could soon be up next.
[Read more...]In his recent commentary, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard sees the world nearing a revived gold standard as the US, Europe, and Japan all continue testing the limits of maximum sovereign debt levels.
With potential for QE3 — a third round of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program — on the horizon, governments around the world must consider alternatives to the US dollar and other paper money. These developments are likely to continue impacting precious metal prices.
[Read more...]President Carter’s former National Security Advisor, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, was interviewed last week on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. He discussed the US’ continuing economic descent and his expectation of civil unrest.
In the video clip, which is featured below, Brzezinski explains that the increasing US income disparity would be more acceptable to the nation’s growing lower-income segment if the economy were continuing to grow. However, because the economy is stagnant, and coupled with high unemployment, social problems are practically inevitable. In the short run, he describes the sense of injustice as demoralizing, but, in the long run, he expects the strife to become more severe, with the potential to lead to extremism and outright class conflict.
[Read more...]With many of the giant US institutional funds holding commercial paper from European banks, your dollars in US money market accounts may not be much safer than euros at a Greek bank. For example, France-based BNP Paribas holds over $7 billion in Greek bonds, and it — along with other foreign banks similarly exposed to a potential Greek contagion — is widely-held by US money market funds.
[Read more...]Apparently, winning first prize for financial research in the China Society for Finance and Banking annual awards was reason enough to accidentally release an internal-only document from the People’s Bank of China.
What the report revealed — over 10,000 corrupt Chinese officials laundering and transporting roughly $120 billion out of China during a 15-year span — probably wasn’t exactly the kind of publicity the central bank had in mind for its award-winning research.
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Reformed Broker’s True/False on Wall Street After Downgrade
After another 630-plus nosedive of a day for the Dow – the major market indices’ most negative day since 2008′s financial crisis — it was refreshing to see a dose of levelheadedness over at The Reformed Broker.
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