ZIRPs and NIRPs and Unintended Consequences

kako-9ZPkbwFTNuty81uO

By Brooks Ritchey, Senior Managing Director, K2 Advisors, Franklin Templeton Solutions     Monetary policy around the world has taken an unprecedented turn—with negative interest rates now the norm in several parts of the world. Brooks Ritchey, Senior Managing Director of K2 Advisors, sees scant evidence to prove this policy approach is working to stimulate […] Read more »

Some Dangerous Signals Appear in Financial Markets

By Stewart Richardson, Chief Investment Officer of RMG Wealth Management   We held our quarterly investment meeting last week (please let us know if you would like to receive a copy of the chart pack), and as you would expect, in both preparing for the meeting and in discussion during the meeting, we thrashed out […] Read more »

Fed Ploughing a Deep Furrow of Confusion

kako-9ZPkbwFTNuty81uO

By Marc Ostwald, Strategist at ADM Investor Services International Limited   If the FOMC’s objective was to convey confusion, it has succeeded, thereby ploughing a deep furrow of instability and destabilization, and shining a very bright light on the large debt and liquidity trap it and other G7 central banks have spent 7 years crafting. […] Read more »

The US Dollar – Novus Ordo Seclorum

dollar elephant 5

By Neil Azous Managing Member of Rareview Macro LLC   Most of us hand over dollar bills every day without ever really looking at them very closely. They are too familiar. But if you pause to look closely at the one dollar bill, you will see, right below the one-eyed pyramid, the Latin phrase “Novus […] Read more »

The Pace Of Tapering By The Fed Under New Leadership

Fed Res Icon Fading

By Colin Cieszynski, Senior Market Analyst, CMC Markets Following the decision to commence tapering at the last meeting, this article looks what the possible outcomes from the forthcoming FOMC meeting could mean for market participants this year.   The article addresses: The key questions following the Fed meeting in December Why QE may be trimmed […] Read more »

Unemployment Rates and Implications for US and UK Monetary Policy

By Alastair Thomas, Head of Rates and Treasury Management at ECM The central banks of the US, the FOMC or “Fed”, and the UK, the Bank of England (“BoE”) have tied their monetary policy to explicit unemployment levels as well as inflation. Since 1977 the Fed has had a dual mandate to target maximum employment […] Read more »

Goldmans Better Tactical Traders Of Gold Than Paulson

tumblr_lzpcmcvAkr1qc2m22o1_500

By Hedge Fund Insight staff There is no doubt that the role of gold for hedge fund managers can be seen in the context of monetary policy, and specifically US monetary policy. Indeed this site has carried a number of gold-related articles in which the phrase “fiat money” has featured strongly. Although Eric Sprott could […] Read more »

If Germany Wins in Court Europe Will Suffer But the Euro Stands to Gain

By Klaudius Sobczyk, Managing Director of Advanced Dynamic Asset Management GmbH   Europeans can be proud of themselves. They are well on the way to becoming a second Japan. The European Central Bank continues to talk the situation up and refuses to continue to print money.  The German constitutional court is now in charge to decide […] Read more »