This week, a German cooperative savings bank in the Bavarian village of Gmund am Tegernsee with less than 10,000 in population, announced it will begin charging retail customers to hold their cash starting in September. This will apply to accounts greater than €100,000 euros. This means the bank will charge customers 0.4 percent, which amounts to […]

  While the GOP elite are doing everything they can to make sure Hillary beats Trump just to hold on to their power base, the real business community that creates jobs, not the bankers and multinationals, are excited about Trump’s tax plan to reduce corporate taxes to 15%. es that is what I testified before […]

The Nikkei (cash market) had a lot to recover having just returned but recover it did. The early bounce was pulled back then the Friday afternoon recovery took over and we closed just off the days highs (+1.2%). China’s Industrial Output was expected at 6.1% but came in a little short at 6% which did […]

We have certainly embarked down the road of a police state. Federal agencies are tracking people who travel on trains and in the air. If someone buys a ticket for cash, the government is notified. They are looking for the slightest thing. I went to the airport to pick up a friend who comes over […]

  A weaker opening for the Nikkei was off-set by better than expect economic data (Machine Orders) by lunchtime. The majority of the afternoon trading was in the positive but eventually closed small down. Many are concerned that the JPY may attempt a summer break of the 100 level which has the tendency to weigh […]

QUESTION: What do you think of value investing? Bob ANSWER: As with everything, a cycle that you have to understand will unfold. Everything will move to extremes on both sides and you must understand the driving forces. Look at the PE Ratio. People write in and say I am wrong and the market must crash because […]

The Asian cash markets just could not wait to open this morning after the huge Payrolls number on Friday. Admittedly, it took a little time and a better than expected Trade Surplus number (52.31 v’s and estimated 47.6) for the Shanghai market to join the excitement, but they eventually did to close +0.9% firmer. The […]

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I recently read a book which claims that the disparity of wealth among nations is something recently unfolding post-Columbus. The thesis claims that before 1500, the income differences between nations were small. It proposes that only since the discovery of America, the interplay between geography, globalization, technological change, and economic policy has determined […]

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Do you think that Hillary can win? And if so, what would happen? Thanks RP ANSWER: Our model is not unanimous for Trump. There is technically a 25% chance that Hillary could win, which one of our four models projects a Democratic victory. However, if you look at the mainstream channels from […]

$278bn and the market is still disappointed! Despite the package provided by the Japanese government today late futures trading has followed the weaker cash market and extended losses by another 2%. Confidence is slightly dented as the market was hoping we would see the helicopter approach and that is why the market continued to sink […]