- Your history
Recent stories in Financial Markets
Wednesday's Pedrocchi : Ricardo, Lucas and QE
A lot has been said about the pros - and especially the cons - of QE or the expansionary monetary policy experiments going global this time. It's an ongoing debate between the hyperinflationistas and new Keynesians. Up until now, the points that I have been trying to make can be summed up as follows : 1) The drugs don't work ...
Anything you can do, I can do...
...much better. Or in this case : Tit for tat in the age of financial repression and currency wars. Since the FED announced QE @ infinitum last week, we have every one in Tokyo back to battle stations because of exchange rate issues, certainly when it comes to USD/JPY : Evolution USD/JPY 1997 -2012
The "Empire" strikes back - Higher
Since unemployment and consumer confidence are not in line with its desired target, the FED decided...to buy houses. Again. QE1 apparently developed the appetite for a repetition. So we now have some 85 bio USD of asset buying on a monthly basis including the 40 bio USD extra MBS from now on (remainder re-investing of maturing MBS ...
An update on the adventures in the landscape of banking
Before taking on the most important latest novelty - the main dish - a short appetizer on 2 items which also to a great extend stress the dangers of systemic risk still present today : 1) Yesterday the central bank of New Zealand urged its most important financial players to speed up their capital adequacy requirements : ...
Ay Caramba !! Lost in translation...
Apparently we have some translation problems at the press communication desk of the ECB, more specifically the department English/Spanish. When the ECB last week launched its so-called bazooka, the message was nevertheless quite clear in plain English : With respect to governments and unlimited buying of government bonds, ...
A primer on ECB September 6 : "High time for a comprehensive approach"
That were Mario Draghi's concluding remarks speaking before European Parliament in Brussels earlier this week. Again by times a clever effort following his Zeit open letter last week where some more psychological pressure was put onto the German people. Let's see what his main message was in order to know what we can expect next ...
If it doesn't cause any harm,well,...
...let's carry on then with the same treatment. This is usually a classic when you have tried everything to cure a patient with standard methods and everything fails. Or even more extreme in the House MD variation on this theme :"If it works, we were right, if he dies it was something else". But all in all, this was the ...
Basel to ignite Danish Dynamite ?
Some weeks ago, we referred to Switzerland, Norway and Denmark amongst others as safe havens and their problems in having their currencies not to appreciate too fast (eg fx reserves of central banks, especially Switzerland). And their "dynamite" features are reflected by short term negative interest rates they offer to the ...
Some thoughts on a German Sovereign Wealth Fund
Over the past couple weeks - in facts months - we have been blogging on the future of the euro-zone and on the economic and political rationale behind recent developments. And the response in the sequential blog debates was rich and interesting to say the least, looked upon from all various angles and for which I would like to ...
Mr Market, EMU scenarios and credit status
A lot of scenarios have circulated ever since the Greek debt crisis escalated and we got contagion into the Mediterranean periphery. And all these elements were related to bailouts, fiscal consequences of bailouts on core European countries (eg possible eurobonds etc), too big to bail (Spain/Italy) and rescue funds, whether or not ...
















