Every G-7 or G-20 meeting homage is paid to the idea of free markets via the market driven value of each nation’s currency. This is hogwash of the highest order in the world of central bank asset purchase programs. The clarion call is that QE is a domestic-based program meant to meet the inflation target set by the nation’s policy makers and any impact on a nation’s currency is just unintended consequences of keeping a country out of a potential disinflationary cycle. Every central bank statement except the U.S. has a sentence or two about the relative value of a nation’s currency and if too strong then concern about a strong currency being a headwind in meeting the illusion and capriciousness of that 2% inflation target.
Posts Tagged ‘Australian dollar’
Notes From Underground: An Open Letter To the G-7
June 2, 2021Notes From Underground: What Constitutes Market Forces?
February 2, 2021This is a question that plagues NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, where we believe 2+2=5 is a beautiful thing. The objective force created by markets has always perplexed us? U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen keeps sounding the alarm that currency values must be established by markets. This is meant to be a threat to nations that attempt to intervene through selling their currencies in the open markets in an effort to keep downward pressure on currency values to support their economies.
Notes From Underground: Yra and Gary Talk Deflation
November 6, 2020On Wednesday, I had a long discussion over Zoom with the eminent Gary Shilling, courtesy of FRA. There is much we agree on but as my readers are aware, my view on a coming deflationary spiral is measured as a low probability outcome of the current financial and economic situation. If deflation were to take hold it would be deemed a major failure of FEDERAL RESERVE policy aided and abetted by 535 fools on Capitol Hill. Before getting to the PODCAST, I offer up this advice on this week of major macro-economic importance (and NO, NOT THE U.S. ELECTION). There were three central bank meetings this week: The Reserve Bank of Australia; the Bank of England; and the Fed.
Notes From Underground: Central Bank Policy Peeks
June 2, 2020On Monday night, the Reserve Bank of Australia issued its policy decision and as expected, there was no change in overnight rates at 0.25%. More importantly, the RBA is targeting three-year Aussie government bonds at 0.25%, keeping the yield curve flat or inverted out to that point.
Notes From Underground: A Microscopic Germ Packs a Wallop
March 2, 2020There is no doubt little organisms can wreak havoc in ways that blowhards could never imagine. People are trying to assess the financial impact by looking at previous pandemics. This is flawed analysis because each pandemic is different depending on the global circumstances and the morass for incubation. During the Cold War people did not move freely so political containment acted as a drag on the spread of disease.
Notes From Underground: Another FRA Podcast
May 1, 2018While waiting for the FOMC‘s rate decision on Wednesday, I am posting a new PODCAST in which I discuss the global macro situation with a woman who whose work I had not been familiar. Nomi Prins has written a new book called Collusion, in which she investigates the role of central banks in its current predicament. I thoroughly enjoyed the 51-minute podcast as Richard Bonugli does a fine job of allowing the guests to discuss in deep detail. I will certainly be buying the book (it was released Tuesday) as it explains in detail what the central banks have accomplished in destroying the signalling mechanisms of capitalism and markets. The Financial Repression Authority has been an important platform for allowing deep discussion on matters of global investment concerns. Enjoy the discussion as I await my readers feedback on the issues we covered and hope it will lead to profitable trade opportunities.
Notes From Underground: Where Are We?
March 28, 2016First quarter is winding down and after a great deal of volatility it is time to reflect on the markets. The SPOOS are virtually unchanged while the Nasdaq 100 is down 5%, the Nikkei is down 10% and the German Dax is down 8%. The global equity markets have been riding a wave of liquidity for a long while but with the aggressive QE programs from the ECB and BOJ the first quarter one would expect the German and Japanese stock markets to have been the star performers. Maybe more QE is losing its power to impact the markets? The DOLLAR INDEX is lower by 3.2%, which is also in contravention of conventional wisdom as QE is done to weaken one’s currency in an effort to aid the domestic economy. In examining the individual currencies the euro is +3%, Swiss franc +3%, yen +8%, Canadian dollar +5% and Aussie dollar +3%. Yes, the easing banks have seen their currencies strengthen against the DOLLAR.
Notes From Underground: The FED … Unsafe at Any Ultra-Low Rate
November 30, 2015Last week, in the middle of gorging our material senses, Janet Yellen was responding to a letter from Ralph Nader, a well known consumer advocate who took the Bernanke and Yellen to task for keeping interest rates too low, resulting in asset inflation for Wall Street and the very wealthy while MAIN STREET was “rewarded” with zero interest rates and almost NO returns on passive, low-risk credit channels. Yellen repeated her third grade teacher tutorial about how savers have indirectly have benefited because of the bounty of jobs available for them and their children and grandchildren and they should stop complaining because home prices have increased to pre-crisis levels in many parts of the country–all because of the wonderful work of the FED and its QE programs. (Even as Carmen Reinhart and other top-level economists have criticized the FED for prolonging FINANCIAL REPRESSION in order to insure against inflation staying below the FED‘s self-imposed mandate of 2 percent.)
Notes From Underground: Tsipras–1; Merkel–0; and the Sycophants of Access Journalism Prattle On
July 6, 2015The outcome of the Greek referendum surprised all, even those who believed a NO vote was imminent. As NOTES has written ad nauseam, the referendum card was the nuclear option for Prime Minister Tsipras and he played it for a resounding impact. Chancellor Merkel was furious with Tsipras for having the audacity to challenge the EU elite by going to the people and testing the concept of the general will. The financial media and its purveyors of pabulum could only see this move by the Greeks in its impact upon the equity markets–and marginally the global bond markets. The outcome for the debt markets is a mixed bag for some bonds rally while the debt of smaller peripheral economies take a hit as the risk-off trade is initiated to the possible negative fallout from the lopsided Greek vote of NO.
Notes From Underground: Larry Summers In Mister October
October 7, 2014There is not doubt that Larry Summers is excited by October G-20 and IMF meetings as the top policy makers meet to discuss the state of the world economy and other significant global interests. It’s a time when the media is focused on the world’s leaders and Mr. Summers likes the role of being a major player. There is no question about Summer’s academic qualifications and his wealth of policy making experience. If success in the field of economics was based on eugenics, well, Larry Summers would certainly have a Nobel Prize. My one major criticism of Secretary Summers was his running interference for Robert Rubin and Sandy Weil in their efforts to repeal Glass-Steagall, which even Mr. Weil has admitted was a great mistake. In today’s Financial Times, Larry Summers had an op-ed, “Why Public Investment Really Is A Free Lunch.”