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Category Archives: financial markets
Watch out, it’s October …
No-one seems to understand why, but this time of year is often tumultuous. (Particularly in the financial world. 1929. 1987. 2008.) This year is looking pretty interesting too. So called “geo-political risk” has risen sharply. Gaza and Ukraine have settled down … Continue reading
Posted in debt, financial markets, tough times
Tagged delusion, economic growth, market value, US economy, Wall Street
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US GDP downer pushed the market up!
About an hour after my last post, the US Department of Commerce released it’s final revision of data for US GDP for the first quarter of 2014 … a staggering -2.9%. Bloggers, twitterers and columnists went into overdrive: “This is the … Continue reading
Posted in financial markets, risk
Tagged delusion, economic growth, Federal Reserve, market value, US economy, Wall Street
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Approaching a market top?
A weird complacency seems to have settled over Wall Street. Stock prices are at a record. The S&P 500 broad index, currently at 1950, is remorselessly approaching 2000. It’s been climbing with hardly a pause for breath for more than five years. That’s … Continue reading
Posted in debt, financial markets, risk
Tagged bank behaviour, China debt, delusion, Dubai, economic growth, Federal Reserve, unemployment, Wall Street
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Celebrity insider trader goes to gaol …
Back in 2012 Rajat Gupta was sentenced to 2 years gaol in New York for insider trading. He appealed, of course. But that failed. So last week off he went to a friendly gaol nicknamed Club Fed (where he can have visitors … Continue reading
Time for a banker to go to gaol?
BNP Paribas, France’s biggest bank, is in trouble with the law in the US. It is apparently guilty of violating US financial sanctions against Iran and others. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) suggested the bank plead guilty and pay a $16 billion … Continue reading
Posted in financial markets, inequality
Tagged bank behaviour, investment banking, JP Morgan Chase, Wall Street
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Could this be the market’s trigger?
Stock markets around the world have been defying gravity for months and months now. Rising ever higher in the face of logic, real economic performance and common sense. It’s now a precarious gamble: hang on and hope that a greater … Continue reading
Co-incidence or consequence?
Michael Lewis seems to be getting more mentions than anyone in the financial press and blogs this week. He’s clearly hit a raw nerve with his new book “Flash Boys”. Here are just a few of the things that have happened … Continue reading
Posted in financial markets
Tagged bank behaviour, derivatives, Goldman Sachs, HFT, Wall Street
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Is the stock market rigged?
Michael Lewis thinks so. On 30th March he went on CBS’ 60 Minutes in the US to promote his latest book “Flash Boys” an expose of the the dark world of High Frequency Trading (HFT). There he asserted “the US … Continue reading
Posted in financial markets, risk
Tagged bank behaviour, derivatives, investment banking, technology, Wall Street
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China: has the music just stopped?
Whilst we’re all distracted by the extraordinary events in Ukraine and Crimea, and the hunt for MH370, things in China are looking dodgier by the day. In the last 5 years the Chinese have created $16 trillion in credit. That is … Continue reading
Something here we don’t know?
The Wall Street stock market has broken stride in the last month or so. Through the last quarter of 2013 it kept rising, breaking new highs every few weeks. Just recently the Dow and the S&P have basically gone sideways. … Continue reading
something 2 ponder 