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    E The Bank Of Canada’s Interest Rate Policy Remains Cautiously Conservative

    For many years now, the Bank of Canada has followed a low-interest rate policy to support the Canadian economy in the rocky period following the Great Recession. Since April of 2009, the target overnight policy rate has ranged between 25 basis points (BPS) and 100 BPS. The overnight rate was cut to 50BPS between July 2015 and July 2017. Recently, however, the rate was increased to 75 BPS on July 12th and then to 1% on September 6th. At its last central bank meeting in October, the overnight rate was held at 1% even though over the past twelve months Canada had the fasted growing economy in the G7. Canada’s central bank was clearly spooked b...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Bitcoin Doesn’t Exist

    Gustave Courbet The wave 1869 A while ago, I asked a regular commenter at the Automatic Earth, who goes by the moniker Dr. D, to try and write an article for us. Not long after, I received no less than 31 pages, and an even 12345 words. Way too long for today’s digital attention spans. We decided to split it into 5 chapters. After we work through those 5, we’ll post it as one piece as well. Dr. D, who insists on sticking with his nom de plume, picked his own topic, and it’s -fittingly- bitcoin. A topic about which one can cover a lot of ground in 12345 words. Now, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t throw in my own two Satoshis: Dr. D cl...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Government Largess To Large Corps Ballooning Public Debt

    The Irish economy collapsed in the 2008 recession and financial crisis, leading to a massive government bail-out of investment banks and highly levered corporations. The efforts shackled the taxpayers with generational debt that they have been laboring to repay amid cuts to other social programs. At the same time, Ireland shares the common plight of developed nations everywhere: toxic processed food habits, and soaring sick-care costs, amid an aging population that is putting increasing strain on productivity and government resources. It is within this context that one reads the following headline this morning: Ireland forced to collect €1...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    October 2017 CoreLogic Home Prices Up 7% Year-Over-Year

    CoreLogic’s Home Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices in the USA are up 7.0 % year-over-year (reported up 0.9 % month-over-month). CoreLogic HPI is used in the Federal Reserves’ Flow of Funds to calculate the values of residential real estate. Analyst Opinion of CoreLogic’s HPI CoreLogic year-over-year rate of growth has been steady for three years – with a higher number issued initially and later downwardly revised in the following months. Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic stated: Single-family residential sales and prices continued to heat up in October. On a year-over-year basis, home prices grew ...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    British Pound Falls From Fibonacci Support As USD Tries To Pick A Direction

    In yesterday’s article, we looked at a series of setups around the U.S. Dollar. As we move deeper into the final month of the year, with a Non-Farm Payrolls report on the docket for this Friday and a FOMC rate decision on the calendar for next Wednesday – USD is unlikely to remain here for much longer. But – this does open the door to setups around the U.S. Dollar, such as the prospect of continued strength in GBP/USD or a return to 1.2000 in EUR/USD. Below, we’re going over four current price action setups in major currency pairs. U.S. Dollar via ‘DXY’ Four-Hour: Dollar Remains Messy, Middle of Recent Bullish Move Chart prep...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Bank Of America To Repurchase An Additional $5B In Stock By June 30, 2018

      Bank of America (BAC) announced plans to repurchase an additional $5B in common stock by June 30, 2018. The company previously announced plans on June 28 to repurchase $12B in common stock from July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018, plus repurchases to offset shares awarded under equity-based compensation plans during the same period, estimated to be approximately $0.9B. The Board of Directors approved the additional repurchases. The additional capital distribution offsets the increase in regulatory capital resulting from the previously announced issuance of common stock, upon Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK-A, BRK-B) exercise of outstanding...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    3 Top-Ranked Nuveen Mutual Funds For Excellent Returns

    Nuveen Investments was founded in 1898 by John Nuveen and is headquartered in Chicago, IL. The company seeks to provide financial services to its clients by using the multi-boutique structure. It provides these services through an independent team comprising Nuveen Asset Management, Winslow Capital and Symphony. The company deals with a wide variety of mutual funds including both equity and fixed-income funds, and domestic and foreign funds. In its Multi-Asset Solutions, the company had $948 billion of assets under management as of Sep 30, 2017. Nuveen manages its assets across a wide range of asset classes and products ranging from equity an...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Brexit Woes Topples Sterling

    The Pound Sterling fell against rivals after markets were disappointed with the latest news on the Brexit negotiations. The UK Prime Minister was unable to cement a deal yesterday to even open talks with the European Union so that free trade could be put on the table. Politics in Northern Ireland played a large role in causing the rift. According to analysts, the real problem begins with the second round of trade-related negotiations because any of the EU’s 27 countries has the right to veto an agreement which it believes could harm or cause disfavor to them. As a result, progress is likely to be slow as the UK attempts to appease all of th...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    US Trade Deficit Surges Near Five Year High Despite Sliding Dollar

    The US trade balance surprisingly blew out in October, increasing from $44.9 billion to $48.7 billion, as unexpectedly exports decreased and imports increased despite the ongoing dollar weakness, missing estimates of $47.5 billion. October’s number was tied for the widest deficit going back to early 2012… … and marks a stark divergence with the recent dollar weakness which would suggest an improvement in US trade data.   Broken down by components, the goods deficit increased $3.8 billion in October to $69.1 billion. The services surplus decreased less than $0.1 billion in October to $20.3 billion. Exports of goods and...
    On December 5, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Technically Speaking: This Is Nuts

    Since the election, markets have accelerated the pace of the advance as shown in the chart below.   The advance has had two main storylines to support the bullish narrative. It’s an earnings recovery story, and; It’s all about tax cuts. There is much to debate about the earnings recovery story but as I showed previously, and to steal a line from my friend Doug Kass, this “new meme increasingly resembles ‘Group Stink.’” To wit: “Despite many who are suggesting this has been a ‘rational rise’ due to strong earnings growth, that is simply not the case as shown below. (I only use ‘reported earnings’ which includes all t...
    On December 5, 2017 / By