“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it“. George Santayana 9 months ago, it must have seemed such a good idea. Ed Morse of Citi and other oil market analysts were calling the hedge funds with a sure-fire winning strategy, as the Wall Street Journal reported in May: “Dozens of hedge-fund managers and […]

A slightly worse than expected print on Britain’s Services PMI: a score of 53.8 points, reflecting weaker growth. The previous PMIs were OK, but this is a significant miss, a drop of 2 points and comes from the largest sector. GBP/USD dipped to 1.2860, a quick loss of 20 pips, before bouncing and recovering some of its […]

William Baumol, one of the most famous economists you’ve never heard of, died recently. Baumol’s fame came out of the observation that there are sectors of the economy in which productivity is rising swiftly, for example, manufacturing, and sectors where it is rising slowly or not at all, for example, string quartet performances. The conclusion he […]

America’s biggest as of 2016 generation, the Millennials, has a heavy burden on its collective 150 million shoulders: its task is to not only step in as a buyer of stocks once the baby boomers begin selling in bulk, but to also provide the much needed support pillar for the recovery of the US housing market. In […]

Stock markets used to be a reliable indicator for the global economy, and for national economies. But that was before the central banks started targeting them as part of their stimulus programmes. They have increased debt levels by around $30tn since the start of the Crisis in 2008, and much of this money has gone […]