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37 posts tagged with "Dollar"
Last week we talked about Greece. But the problems are more than just Greece. We look at two very different views of the euro, and then opposing thoughts on Spain. Is Spain a problem or not? And how can the US keep on spending? Is there a limit? There is a lot to cover in what has been an...
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
--Old Scottish Prayer
Where the Wild Things Are
is a beloved children's book and now a beautiful movie. But in the investment world there are really scary wild things lurking...
I have been in South America this week, speaking nine times in five days, interspersed with lots of meetings. The conversation kept coming back to the prospects for the dollar, but I was just as interested in talking with money managers and business people who had experienced the hyperinflation of...
A lot of bullish commentators are talking about a recovery being in the works, and they may very well be right. But it is not going to look like any recovery worthy of the name. This week we look at what I will call The Statistical Recovery. But first we take a look at what China is doing, as we...
As long-time readers know, my daughter Tiffani and I are interviewing millionaires for a book we will be writing called Eavesdropping on Millionaires.
This has been one of the more personally impacting projects of my life, as the stories we hear are so very provocative. I hope we can transfer to...
President Nixon instated price controls on the 15th of August, 1971. Inflation was a little over 4% at the time. Price controls manifestly did not work (resulting in shortages of all sorts and a deep recession) and were rescinded a few years later. President Ford went to Congress with programs to...
Last week I wrote that we could see a drop in the price of oil as speculators seemed to be storing oil in very large tankers and "slow steaming" them to port in a bet that prices would rise. When everyone is on the same side of the trade, the time is right for a reversal. This is especially true...
A recession is technically defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This week we look at how the GDP is actually calculated to give us an idea as to the potential for a recession. We re-visit my concepts of a Slow Motion Recession and a Muddle...
The dollar reaches new lows. The housing market shows no sign of a bottom. Oil almost touches $84 before backing off. Interest rates go up after the Fed cuts. So naturally the stock market keeps climbing. But then, consumer spending came in strong, employment looks like it may be ok, inflation...
This week we continue to look at an alphabet soup of problems: RMBSs, CDOs, Alt-A, BBB and - a new acronym to put on your radar screen - the very useful CDS. When does an AAA rating not mean an offering is ready for prime time? What type of contagion are we seeing from the Bear Stearns blow-up?...
This weekend I am in La Jolla at good friend Rob Arnott's conference. Princeton Professor Burton Malkiel, of Random Walk fame, will be one of the luminaries at the annual Research Affiliates Advisory Panel. So, with that thought in mind, this week we take a seemingly random walk through the...
"I don't know whether change will come with a bang or a whimper, whether sooner or later. But as things stand now, it is more likely than not that it will be a financial crisis rather than a policy foresight that will force change." - Paul Volker
How long can the United States continue...
"For over ten years now, a wide majority of market strategists and economists from respected investment banks (Morgan Stanley, Dresdner...), a large number of upscale financial publications (The Economist, The Financial Times...
), highly respected consulting firms (Lombard Street Research,...
Why do we do the things we do? How can two people, or even large groups, look at the same set of facts and come to such widely different conclusions? Maybe even more important would be to ask why? Is there some bias involved? Does being a "professional" help you avoid these biases? We will examine...
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
--Old Scottish Prayer
Coming back from Canada this morning, where the Canadian dollar is on a breath-taking rise, and reading several lengthy (and very conflicting) reports on the...
In March of 2002, I wrote an e-letter entitled "King Dollar and the Guillotine," which as the title suggests was a quite negative view of the future prospects for the dollar. Two weeks earlier, I had written a bullish letter on gold, having been bearish (really more agnostic) on gold for years....
For the last 10 days, I have been reviewing over 500 pages of forecasts, predictions, and data from a wide variety of sources. Some have been extremely bullish and others make you want to just slit your wrists and get it over with. But even ignoring the extremes, which are almost always universally...
Last week we looked at change, and this week we turn our attention to balance, or more precisely, the dangers and opportunities of imbalance. Stock markets, currencies, confidence and government will be our target today for what should be an interesting and thoughtful letter.
I have been...
This week we further explore the variation in economic forecasts and then finish with Part Three of "How the World Really Works" from my friend, Art Cashin. Many thanks to him for allowing me to use his work so that I could get a little R&R this summer. Next week it is back to the heat of Texas and...
Today we have a guest writer for Thoughts From the Frontline, as I am in Puerto Vallarta sipping margaritas by the beach. I asked my friend, Porter Stansberry, to give us his take on the recent (and very important) study which shows the US government is $44 trillion dollars in debt. I think you...
