President Donald Trump’s continuous tweeting creates volatility in the markets but the impact lessens as participants become hardened to the vagaries of the tweets. An area that does concern me, though, is the amount of insider trading I suspect is taking place.
Posts Tagged ‘Syria’
Notes From Underground: Areas of Global Macro Concern
July 24, 2018Notes From Underground: The Stock Market Says, “I Think Icahn, I Think Icahn”
October 15, 2015One of the great contemporary financiers warned on September 29 that the stock market was “extremely overheated ” and was being “supported by an “unsustainable earnings mirage.” Well, since that video release from Carl Icahn, the SPOOS have rallied more than 7 percent, defying the wisdom of Ichan, as well as many other highly regarded investors. Today’s equity rally was in the face of what has been a continuing onslaught of negative economic releases. The market has rallied off the August 21-24 lows but has paused when confronted with weak data, such as September’s unemployment report. But today the weak economic releases failed to dent the powerful rally: a weak Empire State, a weaker-than-expected Philly Fed Manufacturing report.
Notes From Underground: The Outcome of Jackson Hole … It’s All Theoretical
August 27, 2013At Jackson Hole there was no Ben Bernanke so therefore no policy announcements as in August 2010 when the famous PORTFOLIO BALANCE CHANNEL (PBC) speech signalled a major shift in Fed policy. Last year was similar as the Fed Chairman used Jackson Hole to alert the market to another round of QE. The most senior Fed official was Janet Yellen and she served more as a panel moderator. This was no place to stake out Vice Chairman Yellen’s claim to the chairmanship. So the discussions of the week were as always, esoteric and academic. But the key take away: There were several papers delivered by acclaimed academics who disagreed with the FED‘s policy of large-scale asset purchases and quantitative easing. Therefore, the conclusion is that the FED‘s present policy is highly theoretical and not based on a SCIENTIFIC proof and the entire basis of QE is open to critical analysis. The talking heads want to believe that TAPERING has a certain outcome. By definition, theoretical outcomes are theoretical and based on probabilities.
Notes From Underground: In the Spring OLD GLOBAL MACRO TRADERS’ THOUGHTS TURN TO GRAIN REPORTS
March 30, 2011Thursday brings the Department of Agriculture report on the prospective plantings for the new crop year and the quarterly grain storage report. In today’s WSJ, there was a piece titled, “U.S. Ethanol Industry May Pare Fuel-Blending Credit.” The readers of NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND know that the ETHANOL SUBSIDIES AND TARIFFS have been a major point of contention for me as I believe that the ethanol price supports have driven global grain prices higher and made a mockery of U.S. trade policy. The article said, “U.S. farmers are poised to increase plantings to take advantage of corn prices.” This is what I have been arguing: The higher corn prices go, the more land farmers take from growing other grains, thus driving beans and wheat and others higher as well. The ETHANOL LOBBY has argued that corn for ethanol is a benign effect … WRONG.
Notes From Underground: The revolution will not be televised*
February 14, 2011As I was inundated with the news out of the Middle East it was simple to recall the song by Gil Scott-Heron. The talking heads were mesmerized by their apparent influence in helping to spark the “PLAZA FIRE.” This is a nice kumbaya moment to believe that the Twitter generation can overcome autocratic rulers by messaging. However, I think it creates a great deal of danger for those with their bodies in the squares. I am a believer in the need to remove the sclerotic autocrats from power but Egypt was not one of those moments. The military that has run the political machinery in Egypt is still intact and pulling all the strings. It is certainly a feel-good moment for those involved but until real change occurs it is nothing more than rearranging the chairs.