The following map (via AON) measures the risk of political violence to international business in 200 countries and territories, based on three icons indicating the forms of political violence which are likely to be encountered: Terrorism and sabotage; Strikes, riots, civil commotion and malicious damage; and Political insurrection, revolution, rebellion, mutiny, coup d'etat, war and civil war.
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Read more »Europe's non-performing loan problem is such an issue that there is increasing bluster that the ECB may take this garbage on to its balance sheet since policymakers realize that bad debts and non-performing loans (NPLs) reduce the capacity of banks to lend, hindering the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Bad debts consume capital and make banks more risk averse, especially with respect to lending to higher risk borrowers such as SMEs.
Read more »Submitted by Adam Taggart via Peak Prosperity blog,
Everyone knows the odds of winning in a casino are worse than 50% (often much worse depending on the game played). So who wouldn't rush to a casino where, instead, the odds were overwhelmingly in the gambler's favor?
Read more »Succinctly summarizing the positive and negative news, data, and market events of the week...
Positives
Read more »Whoever orchestrated the last two hour closing ramp sure has a satanic sense of humor, opting to close the S&P at 1666 or exactly 1000 points above the "generational" low. A late-day desperation to buy-buy-buy, triggered by an avalanche of stops being triggered in the DAX futures market (as it broke all time highs), sent stocks soaring. Treasuries had been weak all day (giving back yesterday's gains and more). The equity spurt was not accompanied by VIX or Credit or Oil or Copper but JPY's break of 103 was another trigger supporting the rise. But that doesn't matter.
Read more »Much has been made of equity inflows this week (though we note a significant outflow from high-yield bond funds - just as risk-on in its nature) and once again the money-on-the-sidelines fallacy is hawked at every opportunity. Two critical aspects are important to get past this 'fact' as some positive driver. First, money does not 'enter' the market, it is swapped (e.g.
Read more »Who are the best six players linked with signing for Manchester United this week?... read more >
Read more »Arsenal are claimed to have one signing almost wrapped up, but where does he feature in our list of transfer target rankings?... read more >
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If you want to get a sense of what’s happening in the world, your best bet is to ignore Government data and focus on corporate revenues.
Why revenues? Because earnings can be massaged any number of ways (depreciation methods, laying off staff to cut costs, depletion of loan loss reserves for banks, etc.). But you cannot fake actual money coming in the door.
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