Today, we have reserved a guest post for Jan De Blonde who is very actively engaged in sustainable farmland investment abroad. Jan is ...
My friend the equity racehorse sent me me the following interesting link which appeared on Dutch television and which basically ...
Vorige zondag (6 mei 2012) verscheen het volgend interview in De Zondag:
Elk jaar omtrent deze tijd publiceert BP zijn Statistical Review of World Energy. Bijna 50 pagina’s grotendeels gevuld met tabellen ...
Door een abrupt beëindigde skivakantie (nauwelijks 50 meter op de latten gestaan) bracht ik de rest van de week haast immobiel en al ...
Well, it's not exactly Moody's but more precisely Fitch, sending out messages which are "surprising" to say the least. Remember ...
Davos, setting of the Thomas Mann novel "Der Zauberberg" and sheltering famous people throughout history such as ...
Following our adventures in today's every changing moods in the world of finance, it's not a bad thing to assess volatility as a ...
You may remember I wrote a piece on Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) , Heineken and Fraser & Neave (F&N) when I was in Singapore earlier ...
My dear friend Sideshow Bob sent me a short note which I think deserves some attention. It opens up the discussion on one of the most ...
Geen kat die deze stelling zal betwisten, maar de impact ervan op de Chinese economie wordt vermoedelijk zwaar onderschat. We hebben ...
De kogel is door de kerk, iedereen van ons kan straks aandeelhouder van Facebook worden. Intekenen op een IPO is echter niet altijd ...
Apple kwam de afgelopen week met de langverwachte medeling over hun spaarpot van 100 miljard $. Een mogelijke overname is nog niet in ...
On March 14th, the Media Innovation Center was launched (under the wings of the IBBT) and baptized 'Mix'. Its goal is to support and ...
Yesterday Fitch released a report with some arithmetics and outlook on the ageing population and how the developed west so far has ...
According to the World Economic Forum, Canadian banks have been ranked as the soundest and most safe banks world-wide, this for 5 ...
Gemini, the immortal twins Castor and Pollux, in this case Dublin and Cork. We picked up an interesting story from out of Bloomberg ...
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"Life without music would be a mistake" - Friedrich Nietzsche. So before turning over to the 2012 review and 2013 outlook, let's just have a quick playful stop first by way of introduction : most likely the best ouverture of all ouvertures ever made, 18th century purest form of Rock & Roll avant la lettre :
...and it's all about plan B, AKA "The Great Escape". There has been some speculation going on lately on how our monetary policy makers intend to normalize the unusual situation where we are in right now. Some - and probably helicopter Ben included - argue that it can become even more unusual in view of the fact that things are not ...
At 5 AM this morning, it became clear that Barack Obama got his democratic legitimacy to carry on for a second term in the White House. It was a close call although most likely the final result in terms of votes might even indicate a landslide victory, depending on swing states such as Ohio, Florida and Virginia (if he holds onto ...
According to the World Economic Forum, Canadian banks have been ranked as the soundest and most safe banks world-wide, this for 5 years in a row. Toronto Dominion Bank, the country's second largest lender, is the only publicly traded lender in the world which still carries a AAA label from Moody's (for what that's worth of ...
Independent of the second presidential TV debate and its outcome, we can safely say that most of US elections are won or lost on the economic track record of the incumbent president. Remember "It's the economy, stupid". And the last couple of days, a strong attack has been launched on Obama by a set of Romney advisers , ie Glenn ...
My dear friend Sideshow Bob sent me a short note which I think deserves some attention. It opens up the discussion on one of the most ancient forms of trading, dating from the days money did not exist. It seems we have a kind of barter revival on our hands. But let's have Sideshow Bob kicking off the discussion : The Chinese ...
...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 ...
The FOMC minutes are out and it seems the committee of US rate setters is no longer unanimous on the issues. An extension of Operation Twist was the compromise outcome and there is a reason for that. And in addition, they softened the language even more by the previous commitment of rates on hold to at least Spring 2014 changing ...
The most recent FOMC statement was again an exercise in walking on eggs. Bernanke told the world things were brightening up and at the same time being extremely frustrated about the slow recovery of the labor market. On the latter, he is right : of the more than 8 million jobs lost since this crisis struck, 2 mio have been picked ...
The answer is "yes", that is if you read today's main article on Bloomberg. The main story line being : "The criticism about the FED being inflationary is not fact-based. Unemployment is slightly improving but far from inflationary levels. And though several republican presidential candidates are claiming Mr Bernanke is the most ...
May you live in interesting times", so goes the English translation of a Chinese curse/proverb. And indeed we live in interesting times because the FOMC yesterday decided to shift the outlook on a 0% short term rate from 2013 to at least 2014. And at the same time, the FED made some choices on explicit inflation ...
In my previous posting dd 16/01, I forgot to mention some important leverage factors as well. I therefore take the privilege to give you an update with new numbers, taken from a very recent McKinsey study on global debt and debt deleveragingThe following chart gives you the facts on the composition of total debt across main ...
New figures on US home foreclosures were recently released and for some, it might even induce some feeling of optimism. So the worst is behind us ? Not yet, and certainly not as far as the FED is concerned. But let's first take a look at some basic stats.
With the recent change in FED "speak" strategy, more transparent communication and the new composition of voting members within the FOMC - kingdom of the doves and the last hawk having left the building - market speculation is rising that a new round of QE3 will be announced very soon. On the desirability of such a new program and ...
Up until now, Obama's scalps on the domestic front have been scarce, certainly when it comes to economics. Admitted, the legacy of his predecessor in terms of financial market leverage excess was phenomenal. And it has become all too blatant that traditional policy remedies are far from sufficient/efficient to solve this crisis in ...
Politics and adapting to the new normal, it seems a bridge too far for many amongst us. And it's not restricted to Europe with its more than fair share of anglo-saxon media attention and frequent abuse. Pretty soon, it's back to Uncle Sam.During the silly season of 2011, we have witnessed a tough battle between bi-partizan ...
10 jaar geleden werd de VS getroffen door laffe terroristische aanslagen. Dezegebeurtenissen werden enorm gemediatiseerd. Miljoenen mensen beleefden rechtstreeks een groot drama. In de dagen na de aanslagen, ontstond een zekere massahysterie, die logisch was gezien de enorme impact van de aanslagen, en de media. Een jaar na de ...
James Bond and Auric Goldfinger were never close friends, even when playing a game of golf. And in economic reality, it rarely occurs that both assets - gold and bonds - go hand in hand. The main reason is that gold serves as a kind of inflation hedge which normally implies an environment of rising yields (and losses on bonds). ...
The renowned American financial expert and much appreciated Econopolis- and Econoshock-contact John Mauldin very accurately predicted the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that resulted from it. In his latest newsletter "Thoughts from the Frontline" (www.johnmaulding.com and ...
Here are 10 myths American politicians want the American (and global) public te believe. The article was written by John Defeo at TheStreet.com .
A turbulent day and a sigh of relief seems to be the conclusion following the Greek vote. Europe and the IMF are happy with the outcome, for Greece mega austerity and a giant wall of debt refunding are on the menu. Concerning the IMF position on this rescue mission and what was said on debt policy world-wide, there is plenty of ...
Europe is in the midst of a financial crisis. But the US is also experiencing a debt crisis. The discussion about the so-called " debt ceiling" hides a more fundamental problem: the appetite of foreigners for US debt has been disappearing. Only China and the US Federal Reserve are willing to ...
Op vrijdag verlaagde S&P de lange termijn kredietwaardigheid van de VS van AAA naar AA+. Het in het kader van het schuldenplafond goedgekeurde plan zou “onvoldoende zijn om het schuldenniveau te stabiliseren”. Het ratingbureau toont zich ook bezorgd over “verdere politieke risico’s”. Ratingbureau ‘s hebben wel ...
The FOMC dropped a bombshell...by doing nothing... and pledging to remain in zero-rate land for a long time. And there are several implications, some indirectly desired by Ben Bernanke, other more counter market productive and obscure. But apart from causing a last minute relief rally on stocks (600 point intra-day swing on DOW), ...
If we use the same logic over and over again, we will arrive at the same end result. The solutions that were used by Japan, and proposed by ia. Greenspan and Krugman failed. And yet, the same school is still in power, and implementing the same policy in the US. In Europe, this school is very powerful. In 2008 they pushed for higher ...
"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what ...
Too often I hear that growth is the solution to the economic and financial crisis. Sound economic growth is certainly a major constituent, but not the single most important factor of a rebalancing and improvement of the global economy. First and foremost, we should acknowledge that imbalanced, unhealthy and unsustainable growth has ...
"We've got him". Dat was de kreet op 13 december 2003, toen Amerikaanse troepen Saddam Hoessein arresteerden in Irak. Op 2 mei 2011 zou dezelfde uitspraak kunnen klinken in de VS. Osama bin Laden werd neergekogeld bij zijn arrestatie, de Al Qaida leider werd 54 jaar oud. Dit is een opsteker voor de VS en in het bijzonder voor ...
A lot of comments these days focus on the fact that we don´t understand the so-called strength of the EURO - in view of the reflaring of the sovereign debt crisis - and the fact that the USD is way too weak. Some nuances need to be made.
