The issue of credit default swaps (CDS) in 2017 is running at twice that of last year reflecting rising concerns of another coming crash. The number of hedge funds and banks dealing with highly sensitive credit derivatives has reached almost $30 billion in 2017 up from only about $ 15 billion in 2016 and just $ 10 billion back in 2015. The credit default insurance, which is supposed to pay certain amount of money a particular company or government registers its insolvency. The trading in CDS was blamed by numerous observers for creating the financial crisis that became a widespread contagion in 2008 in particular. Hedge funds are n...
There have been a lot of attempts recently to try and discern how much of the blame for falling yields and the flagging dollar can be placed at the feet of the man who they let do it only because he’s a star, Donald Trump. What makes these efforts so amusing is that some of them center around trying to explain how the dollar isn’t really a measure of the world’s confidence in Donald Trump. Of course as is the case with almost all arguments aimed at defending Trump, that contention has been vociferously refuted by none other than Donald Trump. Recall this from an April interview with WSJ: I think our dollar is getting too strong, and pa...
Regulators in the US, Europe and Asia who’ve sought to crack down on bitcoin – many of these regulators are also proponents of a “cashless society” – have been dealt a stunning setback by an unlikely defender of the pioneering digital currency: The US Department of Homeland Security. To wit, one anonymous DHS source told CNBC that bitcoin has become “a lot more legitimate” than many believe. “We’re getting a lot better through law enforcement tracking those [criminals] and holding the exchanges more accountable,” the Homeland Security official said. “I think [bitcoin]’s a lot more legitimate th...
EURUSD stays above a bullish support trend line on its 4-hour chart and remains in the uptrend from 1.1662. As long as the trend line support holds, the uptrend could be expected to continue and next target would be at 1.2165 area. Only a clear break below the trend line support could bring price back to 1.1700 zone....
Gold prices continued to edge lower as a supportive round of US economic data bolstered Fed rate hike bets and drove the US Dollar higher, undermining support for anti-fiat assets (as expected). Follow-through proved limited however as markets look ahead to Friday’s official US employment figures before showing strong directional conviction. In the meantime, the PCE inflation gauge – the Fed’s favorite – is in the spotlight. The price growth rate is expected to have slowed to 1.4 percent in July, the weakest since December 2015. Disinflation has bedeviled Fed policymakers all year and goes a long way to explaining the markets’...
While Eaton (ETN) won’t show up on the list of dividend aristocrats, the company has one of the most impressive dividend streaks in the world. Eaton has paid dividends every year for more than 90 years (dating back to 1923) and compounded its payout by more than 10% annually over the past decade. With a dividend yield near 3.4% and a forward P/E ratio below the broader market’s, today is a reasonable time to take a closer look at Eaton to see if it could be one of the better high dividend stocks to consider. Business Overview Eaton is a large industrial conglomerate with approximately $20 billion in annual sales and an operating histor...
Brexit talks are into their third round. While the UK offered some concessions, the EU does not see enough progress. What does this mean for the pound? The team at BTMU analyzes: Here is their view, courtesy of eFXnews: BTMU FX Strategy Research argues that while the negative Brexit sentiment could put a downside pressure on GBP over the coming weeks, strong UK economic data could mitigate that and provide some support. it is worth remembering that at some point lower BoE MPC officials would likely start to hint at potential inflation implications given the MPC tolerance for an inflation overshoot is not infinite. “The latest QIR shows...
Majority of Asian stock indices are lower today as Chinese and Hong Kong shares fall. The Shanghai Composite is off 0.43% while the Hang Seng is down 0.56%. The Nikkei 225 is trading higher by 0.7%. US stocks rose on Wednesday after stronger-than-expected US economic growth outweighed concerns about escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea. Back home, share markets in India have opened the day on a flattish note. The BSE Sensex is trading lower by 11 points while the NSE Nifty is trading lower by 10 points. The BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap index opened the day up by 0.1% & 0.2% respectively. Barring ...
After the shenanigans in US mega-tech stocks over the last two days and the seemingly well orchestrated melt-up to pre-J-Hole levels in the dollar, why should anyone be surprised that ‘someone’ decided to try to sell $1.1 billion notional into the Asian open… Was The Bank of Japan at work again? The flash crash lows coincided with the oddly-timed spike from Monday (that really had very little in the way of specific catalyst)…...
One of the enduring mysteries for conventional economists is why wages aren’t rising for the bottom 95% even as unemployment is low and hiring remains robust. According to classical economics, the limited supply of available workers combined with strong demand for workers should push wages higher. Why have wages for the bottom 95% lost ground in an expanding economy? We can start our search for answers by looking at a chart of wages going back 44 years to the early 1970s. Note that the top 5% began pulling away in the 1980s, when financialization and globalization took off, and accelerated in the 1990s tech boom and the early 2000s ho...