Written by Bill Holter The 2008 Great Financial Crisis came about because we began to hit “debt saturation” levels.The crisis was one of solvency but was attended to with added liquidity.Sovereign treasuries still had the ability to add debt to their balance sheets which was done in unprecedented amounts.Now, we are again bumping up against debt saturation levels as sovereign treasuries by and large have little room left to add more debt in efforts to reflate.The root problem of solvency was never addressed, only postponed to another day.That “day” seems to be in sight so if your capital is not always available to yo...
<< Read More: Inflation (Part I) At one point in the history of the United States, gold and silver coins were money. I use the term money since it satisfies the criteria defined in Part I of this article series. For reasons of practicality and safety, these coins could be stored in depositories issuing certificates redeemable for the coins. The depositories also charged a fee for storage. The depository served a warehouse function and the certificates were the warehouse receipt. The depository collected a storage fee for their services and the certificates were widely accepted as money. It was a reasonable arrangement. These certificat...
Open source integration software vendor Talend has gone against the trend. In what has been seen as a tough market for IPOs, Talend had a strong IPO. It opened trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker TLND at $27.66 after pricing its IPO at $18 and raising $94.5 million. Photo Credit: Savoir-faire Linux /Flickr.com Talend’s Offerings Talend is a French company with its headquarters in Redwood City, Calif. It was founded in 2006 by Fabric Bonan and Bertrand Diard, the founder of data analytics company Business Objects. It sells software that helps organizations organize their existing databases and information resource. Its data pl...
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the total deficit for fiscal 2016 will be $590 billion. This is $152 billion (34%) greater than the shortfall posted in fiscal year 2015. And by 2026 the deficit would be considerably larger as a share of the nation’s output (GDP) than its average over the past 50 years. In addition to this, debt held by the public would rise significantly from its already high level, reaching 86% of GDP by 2026. These accumulating budget deficits add to the Gross Federal debt that is now over $19.4 trillion dollars (105% of GDP). Most importantly, the debt and deficit estimates from the CBO assumes a growth r...
Yesterday, the FTSE 100 was closed in observance of the ‘Late Summer Bank Holiday’. Nothing was missed by the traders in London, as global markets were quiet and trading volumes low. To start off the day, the FTSE is relatively quiet, currently trading near the unchanged line. The UK index (UK100) is in the process of turning higher from the confluence of support we noted on Friday; the lower parallel extending back to early July along with the late July peak. Friday’s low could turn out to be the low pivot of another lower high within the ongoing sequence of higher highs and higher lows. Additionally, in the absence of sellers, a bull...
On Friday, the Dow Jones closed lower as Yellen’s speech at Jackson Hole caused markets to take profit. A lot of the strain on the Dow had to do with the fact that the Fed hinted at a possible rate hike before the end of the year. With this in mind, the risk trade was off. Stocks were selling off, and the Dow Jones closed lower by 0.29% to 18,395.40. Oil was not able to sustain any meaningful type of gains, because of the Jackson Hole speech. In addition, the Saudi energy minister cited that it may not be possible for the largest oil producers to agree to an oil deal. That is to limit the production of oil, in hopes of sprucing up the price...
Oil prices enjoyed a bump last week, thanks in part to a weakened dollar and some geopolitical tensions in the Persian Gulf. But a large factor in the recent rally has been the return of a possible OPEC production freeze, a subject that was last tossed around before the organization’s much-publicized, and ultimately unproductive, meeting in Doha last April. The likelihood of a freeze sent markets up on Thursday, though some less-than-confident comments from the Saudi oil minister sent them dropping back on Friday. And we noted previously, the short squeeze ammo has been eviscerated in oil, disabling (for now) the ‘freeze’ h...
Flickr I’m not here to drag investors into a spiral of negativity when pertaining to Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), but there’s an increasing probability that Facebook’s messenger service will face competition from Apple in the coming months. Since Apple, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) messaging service is due for a major upgrade in the next iOS update, the features overlap with the other messenger services (Snapchat and FB Messenger). Since the impending reality of heightened competition should be looming over the heads of investors, I wanted to write an article offering greater clarity. If the rumor mill is correct, there’s a heightened...
The latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index was released this morning based on data collected through August 18. The headline number of 101.1 was a solid increase from the final reading of 96.7 for July, a downward revision from 97.3. Today’s number was substantially above the Investing.com consensus of 97.0. This is the highest reading of the past 11 months. Here is an excerpt from the Conference Board press release. “Consumer confidence improved in August to its highest level in nearly a year, after a marginal decline in July,” said Lynn Franco, Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board. “Consumers...
Greetings, Once again we begin with the United States where consumer spending remains solid, with the July figures beating forecasts. Further reading Personal income also continues to grow. In response to the above data, economists are revising the Q3 GDP forecast higher again. Here is the consensus projection. The latest nowcast model from the Atlanta Fed (GDPNow) also moved higher – still significantly above consensus (above). Source: @AtlantaFed 1. In other US economic developments, inflation remains benign. Here is the core PCE. Source: St. Louis Fed (FRED) Similarly, the US “Trimmed Mean” PCE Inflation Rate (from the...