Category Archives for "Politics"

Engineering a ‘Santa Rally’ in oil, but what then?

If the price of continued US support after the Khashoggi murder was the lower oil price, then it must rank as one of the  most expensive assassinations of  journalist in history, with Saudi Arabia’s gross oil production revenues down almost $2bn per week. The attempt to resurrect his political reputation at the G20 meeting was […]

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War by other means – interest rates

War by other means?  Forget the South China sea, Syria or Korea.  If you haven’t noticed, the EU and China are locked in a high stakes game of chicken with the US over control of the World’s reserve currency, where the weapon of choice are interest rates. While much has been made of Trump’s attempts […]

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June US jobs data – surprisingly stable

Yes, its out; the US non-farm payrolls for June.  In between love island, the World Cup footie and what counts as financial porn (endless tit-for tat negotiations on tariffs and Brexit) you might have missed these. For those fretting about interest rate rises on an overheating employment market, I shouldn’t worry too much that it […]

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Golden opportunity or just Cultural appropriation?

For Gold bugs, wouldn’t you rather invest in a miner, where its production currency had contracted by almost -20% relative to gold’s principal selling currency, the US dollar? Unfortunately, when the currency in question is falling due to political instability and government threats of confiscation without compensation of property based on race, then the answer […]

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GDP driven rate increases in the US threatens to pummel an already challenged ECB QE policy

Equity markets were widely reported to have bounced on Friday after the solid May private sector job growth, albeit the accompanying rise in average hourly wage growth presages another rate rise by the Fed. With EU’s grip on its southern flank unravelling as friendly regimes in Spain and Italy are replaced however, the prospects of […]

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