A positive start to the week for Asia with all core bourses returning strong one day gains. Hang Seng produced the best close (+1.2%) reflecting much of the closing numbers from the late Friday rally, China core Shanghai closed +0.7% firmer. SENSEX another strong day closing +0.8% higher. Chinese domestic data for New Home Prices […]

COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong; I had the wonderful experience of flying to France to see my son going to school there. Upon my arrival, I was immediately commandeered by the French police asking me how much money I had. I didn’t even get out of the Paris airport. I was not dressed elegantly; just jeans. I […]

It’s looking like a hung Parliament and the polls got it wrong again in Britain. The Conservatives appear to be 12 seats short of the 326 to rule with a majority vote after a 20 point lead back in April. Theresa May is facing a serious backlash over her shocking election campaign gamble following an exit […]

Spain’s Banco Santander is paying €1 to take over troubled rival Banco Popular, in a deal that illustrates Europe’s new system to rescue failing banks without burdening taxpayers or stressing markets. This is being cheered around the world because the shareholders lost absolutely everything. The bank which was valued in the collapse at €1.6 billion was […]

The Asian session was mildly positive with just the Nikkei, the SENSEX and Nifty closing lower on the day. Although they were only small gains, they were gains none the less from +0.2% up to +0.3% for Shanghai, Hang Seng, and ASX. China was helped by better than expected data trade data. The situation in […]

Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada After Trump pulled out of the Climate Accord that would not let anyone speak at the Paris Conference who disagreed with their research, now according to Reuters, the conservative Berlin circle within the CDU is also calling for a softening of the German climate policy. In a statement, the group demanded an […]

This morning in Asia markets were still playing off of the US ADP data and enjoying that its continues to support the recent bull run. Confidence was obvious in markets when the JPY traded back to 111.70 (losing its safe-haven bid) but then NFP’s were released. We’ll comment on this in the US session update […]

The president of Venezuela’s opposition-run Congress led by Julio Borges came out and accused Goldman Sachs of “aiding and abetting the country’s dictatorial regime” after a report that Goldman had bought $2.8 billion in bonds from the cash-strapped country at 31 cents on the dollar. They paid $865 million. There have been two months of opposition […]

Minutes from the Fed’s May policy meeting showed board members thought that if jobs growth remains healthy with a rebound in investment and consumer spending then rates could rise “soon”, which many took to mean June. The economy has shown some signs of weakness, the Fed still thinks its broad strength would justify winding down […]

The Pension Crisis is serious and is the catalyst that will bring everything down. Nearly 600 State & Local governments are now in the hole and has reached nearly $1.2 trillion of unfunded pension liabilities in FY 2014. This reflects total pension liabilities of $4.798 trillion and total pension assets (or fiduciary net position) of $3.607 […]