another site
Spot the difference…
It was a trick question – there is none!
10 years after Bear Stearns collapsed from its own egotistical greed (and regulatory ignorance), the US government is weakening regulations with the TBTF banks bigger and more systemically tied to America’s survival than ever before.
Will we never learn?
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Submitted by Nauman Sadiq,
In July 2003, Dr. David Kelly, a British weapons inspector who disclosed to the media that Tony Blair’s government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was “sexed up,” was found dead in a public park a mile away from his home.
The inquiry into his death concluded Kelly had committed suicide by slitting his left wrist but the mystery surrounding his death has remained unresolved to date, though the obvious beneficiary of his propitious “suicide” was the British intelligence itself.
More recently, Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for the British foreign intelligence service, and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury on March 4.
Eight days later, another Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov was found dead in his London home and the cause of his death has not been ascertained yet.
In the case of Skripal, Theresa May promptly accused Kremlin of attempted assassination.
There are a couple of caveats, however.
Firstly, though Skripal was a double agent working for MI6, he was released in a spy swap deal in 2010. Had he been a person of importance, Kremlin would not have released him and let him settle in the UK in the first place.
Secondly, British government has concluded that Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Moscow-made, military-grade nerve agent, novichok.
A question naturally arises – why would Kremlin leave a smoking gun evidence behind that would lead prosecutors straight to Moscow when their assassins could have used a gun or a knife to accomplish the task?
Leaving mainstream media’s conspiracy theories aside, these assassination attempts should be viewed in the wider backdrop of the Brexit debate.
Both NATO and European Union were conceived during the Cold War to offset the influence of former Soviet Union in Europe. It is not a coincidence that the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991 and the Maastricht Treaty that consolidated the European Community and laid the foundations of the European Union was signed in February 1992.
The basic purpose of the EU has been nothing more than to lure the formerly communist states of the Eastern and Central Europe into the folds of the Western capitalist bloc by offering incentives and inducements, particularly in the form of agreements to abolish internal border checks between the EU member states, thus allowing the free movement of labor from the impoverished Eastern Europe to the prosperous countries of the Western Europe.
Reportedly, 79,000 US troops have currently been deployed in Europe out of 275,000 total US troops stationed all over the world, including 47,000 in Germany, 15,000 in Italy and 8,000 in the UK. By comparison, the number of US troops stationed in Afghanistan is only 15,000 which is regarded as an occupied country. Thus, Europe is nothing more than a client of corporate America.
No wonder then the Western political establishments, and particularly the deep states of the US and EU, are as freaked out about the outcome of Brexit as they were during the Ukrainian Crisis in November 2013 when Viktor Yanukovych suspended the preparations for the implementation of an association agreement with the European Union and tried to take Ukraine back into the folds of the Russian sphere of influence by accepting billions of dollars of loan package offered by Vladimir Putin.
In this regard, the founding of the EU has been similar to the case of Japan and South Korea in the Far East where 45,000 and 28,500 US troops have currently been deployed, respectively. After the Second World War, when Japan was about to fall in the hands of geographically-adjacent Soviet Union, the Truman administration authorized the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to subjugate Japan and also to send a signal to the leaders of the Soviet Union, which had not developed their nuclear program at the time, to desist from encroaching upon Japan in the east and West Germany in Europe.
Then, during the Cold War, American entrepreneurs invested heavily in the economies of Japan and South Korea and made them model industrialized nations to forestall the expansion of communism in the Far East.
Similarly, after the Second World War, Washington embarked on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe with an economic assistance of $13 billion, equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars in the current dollar value. Since then, Washington has maintained its military and economic dominance over Western Europe.
There is an essential stipulation in the European Union’s charter of union, according to which the developing economies of Europe that joined the EU allowed free movement of goods (free trade) only on the reciprocal condition that the developed countries would allow free movement of labor. What’s obvious in this stipulation is the fact that the free movement of goods, services and capital only benefits the countries that have a strong manufacturing base, and the free movement of people only favors the developing economies where labor is cheap.
Now, when the international financial institutions, like the IMF and WTO, promote free trade by exhorting the developing countries all over the world to reduce tariffs and subsidies without the reciprocal free movement of labor, whose interests do such institutions try to protect? Obviously, they try to protect the interests of their biggest donors by shares, the developed economies.
Regardless, while joining the EU, Britain compromised on the rights of its working class in order to protect the interests of its bankers and industrialists, because free trade with the rest of the EU countries spurred British exports. The British working classes overwhelmingly voted in the favor of Brexit because after Britain’s entry into the EU and when the agreements on abolishing internal border checks between the EU member states became effective, the cheaper labor force from the Eastern and Central Europe flooded the markets of Western Europe, and consequently the wages of native British workers dropped and it also became difficult for them to find jobs, because foreigners were willing to do the same job for lesser pays, hence raising the level of unemployment among the British workers and consequent discontentment with the EU.
The subsequent lifting of restrictions on the Romanians and Bulgarians to work in the European Union in January 2014 further exacerbated the problem, and consequently the majority of the British electorate voted in a June 2016 referendum to opt out of the EU. The biggest incentive for the British working class to vote for Brexit is that the East European workers will have to leave Britain after its exit from the EU, and the jobs will once again become available with better wages to the native British workforce.
The developed economies of the Western Europe would never have acceded to the condition of free movement of labor that goes against their economic interests; but the political establishment of the US, which is the hub of corporate power and wields enormous influence in the Western capitalist bloc, persuaded the unwilling states of the Western Europe to yield to the condition against their national interests in order to wean away the formerly communist states of the Eastern and Central Europe from the Russian influence.
Thus, all the grandstanding and moral posturing of unity and equality aside, the hopelessly neoliberal institution, the EU, in effect, is nothing more than the civilian counterpart of the Western military alliance against the erstwhile Soviet Union, the NATO, that employs a much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare to win over political allies and to isolate the adversaries that dare to sidestep from the global trade and economic policy as laid down by the Western capitalist bloc.
It would be pertinent to mention that though Theresa May’s Conservatives-led government is in favor of Brexit, the neoliberal British deep state and European establishments led by France and Germany are fiercely opposed to Britain’s exit from the EU. They could have hired any rogue agent for the attempted assassinations on the Russian exiles that draws suspicions toward Kremlin.
Since the referendum, the British deep state and European establishments have created numerous hurdles in the way of Brexit. The First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon is demanding more autonomy and control over Scotland’s vast oil and gas reserves and a debate is raging on over a “soft border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland which will remain in EU post-Brexit. Instead of a smooth transition to an independent state, Britain is more likely to disintegrate in its effort to leave the EU.
Finally, a New Cold War has begun. 25 out of 28 EU member states have recently signed an enhanced security cooperation agreement known as the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) whose aim is to structurally integrate the armed forces of EU members. Britain along with Denmark and Malta are being left out. The main objective of the recent assassination attempts on the Russian exiles is to intimidate the Conservatives-led government that Britain will be left to fend for itself post-Brexit.
* * *
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.
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Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed the Trump Organization to hand over documents related to relationships with Russia. The order appears to be the first time Mueller has demanded information from President Donald Trump’s businesses since he began the investigation.Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to sign up for Reason’s daily updates for more content.
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Recent concerns about a Chinese liquidation of its Treasury holdings in advance of, or in response to, a trade war appeared to have been greatly exaggerated one month ago, because according to the Treasury International Capital data from one month ago, China had actually added $8.3 Billion to its holdings in December, bringing the total to $1184.9BN, $26 billion more than a year ago. Meanwhile, we reported that the real seller was Japan, which dumped $22.6 billion in TSYs, bringing its total to just over $1.061 trillion, the lowest since the start of 2012.
Fast forward to today when the “China is liquidating treasurys” narrative is set for a comeback, because according to the latest just released TIC data, in the first month of 2018, Chinese Treasury holdings declined by $16.7 billion (a number which recall is price adjusted), to $1.168 trillion, the lowest since July of 2017 and the biggest monthly drop since September.
Meanwhile, Japan’s liquidation appears to have been put on hold, as the land of the rising sun added $4.3 billion, bringing its new total to $1.066 trillion.
Other notable holders were mixed:
The good news for all the recent buyers of US debt is that thanks to Trump’s budget, there’s plenty more where that came from.
Looking at the broader universe of all US International capital transactions, in January, foreign public and private entities bought a total of $8.4BN in Treasurys while adding $22.5BN in Agencies; they also sold a modest $2.2 BN in corporate bonds.
But the biggest surprise – for the second month in a row – was the surge in US stock purchases by public and private foreign entities, which in January amounted to a whopping $34.5 billion (of which official entities bought $952MM while private entities bought $33.5BN), the second highest monthly total on record, and smaller only compared to the record foreign buying in May 2007, when offshore entities bought a record $42 billion.
So in addition to buybacks, algos, CTAs, risk parities and a relentless retail bid, here is another reason for the tremendous equity meltup at the start of 2018: furious buying of US stocks by foreigners in January of 2018…. a trend which however ended with a bang just 5 days later when the February 5 volocaust crushed all countless human and robotic momentum chasers.
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This is not the normal pre-OPEX panic-ramp, everyone’s buying stocks market…
Some generous National Team action overnight saved Chinese stocks from sinking back into the red YTD…
Europe closed green, rallying after US markets opened…
Stocks rallied after Peter Navarro appeared on CNBC with Rick Santelli and did not say something earth-shattering (it seems we have a low barrier for what is ‘good’ news again), but then Mueller headlines sparked some de-risking… Dow dramatically outperform
This is the S&P’s longest losing streak of the year (since 12/6/17)
Futures show the overnight dip around the Japanese open (suggested driven by comments from Kuroda, buit it was quickly stabilized)
S&P clings to its 50DMA…
Stocks also stumbled when WMT was whacked with a whistleblower lawsuit… but once again Boeing was in charge…
FANG Stocks were marginally lower on the day but as Bloomberg details, the rally in the FANG block of tech shares and its megacap brethren just surpassed a dubious milestone. An index of 10 tech growth shares pushed its advance to 23 percent so far this year, giving the group an annualized return since early 2016 of 67 percent. That frenzied pace tops the Nasdaq Composite Index’s 66 percent return in the final two years of the dot-com bubble.
The NYSE FANG index has risen 76 percent in the past year, picking up pace from 41 percent in the previous 12 months.
Bank stocks stabilized a little today after an ugly week…
Also of note, for the 5th day in a row, VIX is holding at its 50DMA ahead of tomorrow’s OPEX…
Treasury yields were broadly unchanged today with the very short-end up 1-2bps…
Once again the yield curve flattened to fresh lows since Oct 2007…
The Dollar Index screamed back into the green for the week and unchanged from pre-payrolls… This is the biggest jump in the dollar since February…
PMs and Copper drifted lower on the day as the dollar ripped but crude bounced higher…
Kudlow had a great day after saying “sell gold, buy king dollar”…
Another ugly day for cryptos as weakness accelerated dramatically overnight from the losses after Google announced its crypto ad ban but dip-buyers scooped up some in the US session…
Finally we note that the only asset class to see its volatility fully normalize since February’s Fiasco is gold…
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Authored by Duane Norman via Free Market Shooter blog,
In the wake of the Parkland shooting, a group of mothers from the area made a push to improve safety at schools. Somewhat surprisingly, they decided to avoid gun control and partisan politics, as Alyssa Alhadeff opted to advocate for a more comprehensive (and politically neutral) goal:
She’s launched a nonprofit called Make Schools Safe (MakeOurSchoolsSafe.org) to lobby for measures to increase campus security such as metal detectors, armed guards, bulletproof doors and windows, and reduced access points. Although Alhadeff respects the fight for gun control, she feels she can most readily make a difference with these initiatives.
The mom, who has two sons, ages 10 and 13, is currently in New York City promoting the nonprofit with the help of six girls between the ages of 14 and 18 — dubbed the Dream Team. All knew Alyssa, and most were there that tragic day.
It was a bit of a shock to see liberals choosing to use their advocacy to promote a sensible position with a strong likelihood of reaching a bipartisan solution, instead of the typical gun-grabbing that emerges from similar tragedies.
However, no one was likely to be as surprised as Alhadeff when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio removed all NYPD police officers from NYC schools:
The last NYPD cops assigned full-time to New York City public schools are being moved out — despite nationwide calls for heightened security in the wake of last month’s Florida shootings.
As the nation mourned the 17 victims of the school massacre at Parkland, Fla., the NYPD was removing Sgt. Raul Espinet from his post at Francis Lewis HS in Fresh Meadows, Queens — where he had worked for more than a dozen years. Parents, teachers and students are livid over the beloved cop’s departure.
“My colleagues think it’s outrageous — and really stupid,” teacher Arthur Goldstein said. “We’re not enthusiastic about arming teachers, but we liked having a cop around.”
Why has de Blasio decided to direct his own city in opposition to a solution with bipartisan support? Apparently it is because he believes firearms at schools are “terrifying”:
“There’s nothing more terrifying than putting more guns in our kids schools,” de Blasio said.
Surely Alhadeff had to question if she was in the right place to push for school safety, as she was in New York City promoting her nonprofit when de Blasio removed the officers from schools. While the lunacy of gun control has gotten out of hand lately, no one would ever expect our leaders to willingly give schools no means with which to defend themselves from a possible assailant.
Before you hear about New York City’s “low” gun crime rate and about how police officers aren’t “necessary” in NYC schools, it has to be mentioned that early this morning, four people were shot dead in a murder-suicide incident in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood:
A 14-month-old girl and three men were fatally shot in the head in a possible murder-suicide that was discovered Wednesday morning by a grandmother, police and sources said.
While gun control advocates will certainly fudge the numbers to classify this tragedy as a “mass shooting”, these incidents occur with dizzying frequency in bad neighborhoods in inner cities (like Chicago) which inflate nationwide gun homicide statistics, and are hardly covered at all by the mainstream media, much less sensationalized like other incidents such as the ones in Parkland and Las Vegas. These tragedies can happen anywhere, and are even more likely to occur at schools if they are confirmed “gun-free zones” with no armed security presence.
It is difficult for gun control and gun rights to find any common ground these days – gun control advocates have resorted to committing felonies to make their political statements, and some gun rights advocates refuse to support even the Fix NICS Act, even with any gun rights infringements stripped out of the bill. But somehow, Mayor de Blasio has found a way to take the other side of a universally-accepted measure designed to improve school safety, while still continuing his partisan gun-grabbing push on the national stage to make schools “safer” for children.
Already disliked for his anti-police policies that have put a target on NYPD officers’ backs…
…de Blasio has decided he wasn’t content with just police, but has decided to make NYC schools a target as well – which he has done, ironically enough, by removing police officers from the very place liberals and conservatives both agree needs armed protection now more than ever.
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Yesterday I spent the day up in the mountains above Medellin with some colleagues, touring a cannabis plantation that I invested in a few years ago.
Cannabis production is now legal in Colombia. And the company is one of a handful that has a license.
I’m not a user myself, but I’ve long understood both the financial benefits of cannabis production, as well as the potential health benefits of the product.
We’re not talking about recreational use.
In fact, almost all the plants that the company is growing right now are non-psychoactive, i.e. they’ve stripped out the ‘THC’ within the plant that gets people high.
Instead they’ve focused on CBD, an ingredient within cannabis that has been shown to have some incredibly positive effects on the human body.
They showed me case after case of children with epilepsy, paralysis, and even cancer, being treated with, and cured by, CBD-based medicines.
It’s great to be part of a business that can have such a profound impact.
And it’s quite a testament to this country that they set up the entire enterprise right here in Colombia.
The founder of the business, an old friend of mine, told me yesterday that there’s no way they could have built this company in North America or Europe.
Colombia is light-years ahead of most of the world in terms of its cannabis regulations, so what the company is doing wouldn’t even be legal in most places.
They also enjoy the added benefits of dirt-cheap labor costs, and ideal natural growing conditions that make them vastly more cost competitive than anyone in the US or EU.
This is one of the things that I love about doing business overseas: you’re often able to accomplish things that would never be possible back home.
I’ve had the same experience with the agriculture business that I founded in Chile back in 2014.
In just four years we’ve grown to become one of the largest players in the country, and soon we’ll be one of the largest producers in the world.
I would never have been able to build that company back in the US. It’s too expensive, there’s too much competition, too much regulation.
In Chile, we have access to some of the highest quality farmland in the world at prices that are a fraction of what they are in the US.
Labor costs are equally cheap.
There’s very little regulation that frustrates our progress.
Plus, one of the things I like best about Chile is that I can bring foreign talent into the country from anywhere in the world.
I don’t have to settle for local talent. I can literally hire anyone on the planet and legally bring them into the country with permission to work– and that is a privilege we have enjoyed time and time again.
Like Chile, Colombia also has fairly attractive immigration laws that simplify the residency process and make it straightforward to bring in foreign talent and labor.
You can use those same rules to obtain residency for you and your family.
As we have discussed several times in this letter, having a foreign residency makes a LOT of sense.
Obtaining foreign residency doesn’t mean that you have to physically move.
But simply taking a few administrative steps to obtain legal residency in a foreign country ensures that, no matter what happens, you always have a place to go where you’re welcome to live, work, invest, do business, and bring your family.
Think of it like an insurance policy: you might not ever need it.
But if the day ever comes where you feel like you need to leave your home country, having foreign residency already established will make your life infinitely better.
Plus, in a number of countries (including both Colombia and Chile), after a few years of legal residency under your belt, you’ll be able to apply for citizenship and a second passport.
Your children and grandchildren can even be eligible to receive citizenship as well… meaning that entire generations of your descendants could benefit from a few simple administrative steps that you take today.
This is an option that makes a lot of sense… with very little downside.
And if you’re entrepreneurial-minded, you might also obtain residency in a foreign country where there’s a ton of business and investment opportunity.
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Forgive us if you’ve heard this one before.
For at least the third time in the past month, a respected national media organization has published a story claiming that President Trump’s legal team is leaning toward advising their client to sit for an interview – albeit with certain restrictions – with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Today’s report, published by Politico, bore certain similarities to a story published by the Wall Street Journal last week. Last month, the New York Times reported that Trump’s lawyers were pushing Mueller to accept written answers – a solution reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s handling of the Iran-Contra scandal.
One of Politico‘s sources said the negotiations were “moving fast”, and that an interview could be arranged soon. Of course, we’ve heard that one before.
“I don’t think it’s months and months out. I don’t think it’s in a week,” said the person familiar with the negotiations. “But I think it’s moving toward closure.”
Given Trump’s litigious reputation, one might expect the president to be comfortable during interviews and depositions of this nature. However, his legal team is worried that what Politico characterizes as the president’s “improvisational nature” could lead to Trump accidentally uttering a falsehood, potentially drawing a perjury charge from Mueller.
Trump is hardly a stranger to legal proceedings: In one 2012 deposition, according to the Atlantic, Trump said he had participated in more than 100 depositions.
But that doesn’t mean Trump is always well-prepared to field complex legal questions under oath. During a 2016 deposition tied to his lawsuit against a chef who backed out of a deal to open a restaurant at Trump’s Washington D.C. hotel, Trump was asked what he did to prepare for the hearing.
“I would say virtually nothing,” he replied. “I spoke with my counsel for a short period of time. I just arrived here, and we proceeded to the deposition.”
Trump added that he didn’t study any documents beforehand.
Before any interview, Trump and his lawyers must complete their sensitive negotiations with Mueller over its terms. Among other things, Trump’s lawyers have argued that the burden is on Mueller to show his investigation can’t be completed without an interview with the president. They have also studied the feasibility of answering questions in writing, as President Ronald Reagan did during the Iran-Contra scandal. And they have made clear their resistance to Mueller questioning Trump more than once.
To mitigate these risks, Trump’s lawyers are seeking clear boundaries for the topics discussed, and the NYT has even reported that Trump’s lawyers were seeking assurances that, should Trump agree to a sit-down, Mueller would see to it that the probe concludes before a given date. Trump’s legal team should already have a clear picture of what Mueller intends to ask: Thanks to his documents requests, Mueller is interested in a broad range of topics from Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey to how he responded to the theft and leaks of Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“It’s a tug of war both internally and probably with Mueller,” said a senior Republican who recently met with the president. “The end goal for the White House is to get as narrow a discussion as can be possibly negotiated including maybe just answering written questions like Reagan.”
Then again, we’ve also heard reports to the contrary: The NYT’s Maggie Haberman published a report earlier this month about Trump’s growing frustration with his legal team – drawing a tweeted rebuke from the president.
Some legal experts objected to the idea that Mueller might agree to a predetermined end-date for the probe.
Solomon Wisenberg, a former deputy on Kenneth Starr’s independent counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton, said that idea would be a non-starter for Mueller.
“That’s bullshit,” he said. “You accommodate the president but you don’t change the rules for him in a substantive way.”
Notably, one anonymous Trump associate who spoke with Politico confirmed an idea that we first highlighted following the initial reports about the behind-the-scenes bargaining: That is, the notion that Trump’s legal team is using these media reports as a ploy to convince Trump that they at least tried to strike a deal with Mueller. As one strategist points out, Trump’s legal team has crafted a “win-win” scenario for itself.
“It’s a strategy by the lawyers,” the defense attorney said. “Either Mueller will agree to the terms in some fashion, and at least they get something out of it, or he won’t and then they can convince the president not to sit for the interview.”
…Sounds like a pretty good deal to us.
The House Intelligence Committee announced last week that it would be ending its collusion probe – to the horror of the committee’s Democrats, who have pledged to issue a dissenting report.
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Tuesday’s post, It’s Impossible to Overstate How Terrible Mike Pompeo Is, laid out the view that Trump’s firing of Rex Tillerson represents a major shift toward war footing for the Trump administration, with Iran the specific target. This pivot was easily predictable, and I wrote numerous articles doing just that during 2017. Nevertheless, forecasting it and then seeing the disastrous pieces being moved into place are two different things.
Trump’s push to install Mike Pompeo as U.S. Secretary of State is a crystal clear indication that he’s begun the process of building his war cabinet. The next steps, likely to begin over the course of 2018, is to walk away from the Iran deal. I suspect relentless war propaganda to be unleashed simultaneously as the neocon/neoliberal/mass media war-monger alliance plays its well established role in selling the American public on another pointless and destructive war.
My prior post discussed Pompeo in detail, so I don’t want to be repetitive, but to revisit: Pompeo has contempt for the First Amendment, referred to torturers as patriots, wants Edward Snowden executed and is an extreme warhawk when it comes to Iran. In other words, he’s your typical neocon lunatic who’s just a bit more rough around the edges publicly. He represents the exact opposite sort of foreign policy to what so many Trump voters thought they were getting.
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Authored by Patrick Watson via MauldinEconomics.com,
At the Strategic Investment Conference 2018, Dr. Lacy Hunt, economist and EVP of Hoisington Investment Management, claimed that “economics is a science” and today it’s more important than ever.
Although economics is not as precise as physics or chemistry, he added, our understanding in this domain gradually advances.
Dr. Lacy Hunt then moved on to overview the current economic situation.
Looking from a debt perspective, the situation looks terrible.
Citing the law of diminishing returns, he showed how more and more debt is required to boost output. In 2007, global debt was 276% of global GDP. Today, global debt is 327% of global GDP.
In 2007, a dollar in debt generated 37 cents in GDP growth. In 2017, a dollar in debt created only 31 cents in GDP. Money supply and bank credit are collapsing.
Meanwhile, money velocity is at its lowest rate since 1949.
Hunt then showed how an increase in vehicle sales due to natural disasters artificially boosted GDP.
Between 600,000 and 700,000 cars were destroyed and had to be replaced in the aftermath of US hurricane disasters. This event appears in the economic data as a rise in GDP for the fourth quarter.
However, if we look at GDP minus vehicle sales, the rate of growth drops vastly.
What this phenomenon did was to pull future auto sales into the present. And it adds very little value to the economy. It’s a good example of the Broken Window Fallacy.
So, the bump in GDP growth was due to an anomaly, and the overall trend remains constrained.
Hunt wrapped up his keynote at SIC 2018 by stressing the importance of the yield curve.
As a reference, he used the spread between long-term treasuries and the 3-month bill, which has been falling for over 90 months. He suspects that if we get further rate hikes this year—as the Fed suggests—the spread will approach zero and could invert.
“Whether or not it actually inverts is not important,” said Lacy Hunt. What’s important is that similar conditions have preceded six of the last seven recessions.
* * *
Get Your Virtual Pass to 2018’s Most Important Investment Conference – Watch and listen to 25 top experts as they discuss their best investment ideas and predictions for the economy, financial markets, and geopolitical relations in Strategic Investment Conference 2018. Grab your virtual pass now!
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