Shanghai remains closed but the Hang Seng reopened after its public holidays to a negative mood. The trend remained the same for the day, as bid after bid was hit to close down 2.38% on the day. The news that US Defence Secretary James Mattis proposed visit to China had been cancelled, escalated the rumours […]

QUESTION: Okay Marty, You keep saying “the world monetary system will have to be reformed.” Spill! What do you hear behind the curtain? Cheers, EM ANSWER: I just returned from Europe where I had meetings with some high levels of interest. The great concern in Europe is the end of QE for there is a serious […]

The Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif has come out and admitted that a “system error” allowed customers to “buy” trillions of bitcoin for free. The Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, reported that Zaif informed users of the error in a post on their website. They explained that users could inadvertently “trade” the yen for virtual currency at an […]

QUESTION: A friend told me the one pound coins I have from a trip to Britain last year were canceled. How can a government simply cancel its money? KL ANSWER: Oh yes. Britain canceled the one pound coins last October. They estimated that £400-450 million pounds became worthless overnight. Europeans routinely cancel their currency. This […]

QUESTION: Hi Martin, Despite the Bitcoin fanboys arguing that Bitcoin is untouchable by governments, would you agree that once governments, in particular, the Chinese government, make it unlawful to own Bitcoins, the additional introduction of proceeds-of-crime legislation would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to use Bitcoins to acquire assets, and dealing a permanent blow […]

The Bank of Italy, when it was headed at the time by Mario Draghi, knew Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA hid the loss of almost half a billion dollars using derivatives two years before prosecutors were alerted to the complex transactions, according to documents revealed in a Milan court. Mario Draghi, now president of […]

  Having just seen an uncertain US session, Asia was a little confused which way to take markets from the opening bell. Still, it appears as though Shanghai and Hang Seng want to cancel each other out which a very much mixed session. The Nikkei had another strong day resulting in 16 days of consecutive […]

In Asia we saw a similar picture to yesterdays market movers with Shanghai and the Hang Seng both closing higher whilst the Nikkei, ASX, KOPSI and SENSEX all closed lower. The SENSEX lost the most ground today (-1.4%) as it continues to add to its recent losing streak, making this its seventh day in a […]

Having seen the US markets close on a high note Asia saw a little nerves appear at the opening but at least we are back to focusing on markets rather than having to price-in geopolitical risks. It was the Nikkei again that returned the best of the core (+0.5%) and this time with the currency […]

  I have been pointing out the crisis we face moving forward. The gist of this is the total fiscal mismanagement of government for which we, the people, are always blamed. This hunt for taxes has led down the path of arguments for eliminating currency. While people think Bitcoin is an answer, they do not […]