We are facing a pension crisis, thanks to negative interest rates that have destroyed pension funds. Pension funds are a tempting pot of money that government cannot keep its hands out of. The federal government of Canada, for example, is looking to reduce the cost of government by shifting Canada’s mounting infrastructure costs to the […]

A little overdue but today we heard from the Bank of Japan and possible proposals to take rates even further negative and the likelihood banks passing these levels on to end retail. The Nikkei obviously liked it rallying 1.2% on the day whilst the Yen weakened over 2%. Both the Shanghai and HSI had mixed […]

Nikkei opened well and also saw a retracement of the JPY, but unfortunately, other Asian indices did not follow suit. Having seen a 0.5% gain in the first hour of trading, we spent the rest of the day drifting back to almost unchanged. Shanghai and Hang Seng, meanwhile, were hit from the opening and really […]

A disappointing result from the weekends Doha meeting, resulted in negative market reaction early Monday morning trading. With oil initially trading off 6.5% from Fridays close the Asian equity markets opened in a bit of a frenzy with many brokers looking for the bid. The Nikkei was the weakest of the bunch closing down over […]

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I think I am starting to see the light you have been shining. Negative interest rates really are “completely insane”. I also now see that months after you wrote about central banks were trapped, others are now just starting to entertain the idea. Is this distinct difference in your views that eventually […]

The Bundesbank (German Central Bank) has come out to oppose eliminating cash. During the pre-euro years, the Bundesbank was providing us with inside info on the euro preparations because they were outright against it. Those who always hate central banks do not realize that they are not always what it seems. The Bundesbank is now […]

JPY remained the focal point for Asia, well that was until the market realized it had finally turned. The JPY took out the 109 handle and dealers were less concerned and comfort returned to the Nikkei. The session went from strength to strength closing up almost 2% on the day. The Shanghai and Hang Seng […]

Gold needs a closing ABOVE 1254.50 to signal a rally. A closing below 1225 would warn of a decline. Between these two numbers is still neutral. In silver we nee a daily closing above 1551 on a daily basis to signal a rally but a closing above 1531 today will keep silver in a neutral […]

The main topic again last night was the magnitude of the advancing Yen. Despite a convincing break below the 109 (and 108 in European trading) the Nikkei only managed to hold ground to show a modest (0.22%) gain on the day. The Shanghai fell over 1.3% overnight and only just managed to hold the psychological […]

Based on the cash, we can see that the Greenback has rallied sharply against the A$ but has not elected a yearly bullish as of yet. It did exceed that level intraday, but the fact that it failed to retain those gains warns that we are not looking at new historic highs for the dollar […]