Money matters — it’s a maxim of Prof. Milton Friedman that I repeat often in my columns. Since the Northern Rock bank run of 2007 — the "opening shot" of the financial crisis — the money supply, broadly measured, in the United States, Great Britain, and the Eurozone has taken a beating.
Last month, an unlikely pair of senators – Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, and David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican – introduced a non-binding resolution calling for the end of the implicit subsidies that “too big to fail” (TBTF) banks enjoy.
Let’s take a look at a few graphs of the dollar, from Feb 1, 2013 through Friday May 17, 2013. Yes, I said graphs of the dollar. I’ve priced the dollar in gold first (of course), then silver, the euro, and even the yen. The pattern is obvious. The dollar is going up.
Since we last reported on the current Global Recession, the Global Leading Economic Indicator (GLEI) rose for the month of March, but is following an atypical growth pattern coming out of recession, with a slope far shallower than the normal expected rebound.
The 2003-07 credit cycle provides an instructive template on how the current cycle may eventually play out.
Since the S&P 500 made an intraday low of 1,536 on April 18, the widely-followed stock index has tacked on 130 points and the markets have migrated back to full-bore risk-on mode.
Before taking even one step further, I’ll tell you right up front that this is more of a “for fun” discussion than not. For many a moon I have followed a number of sentiment surveys that I believe can be quite helpful.
The elusive bottom in Chinese stocks is becoming more constructive here with a higher low being put in, above the 200-day moving average. MACD signaled a buy in May and is moving into positive trend territory on the daily chart.
Both the Dow and S&P 500 were off slightly after the great run higher over the past few weeks. Things were quiet for much of the day. There was an attempt at a rally mid-day that failed to hold and the large averages sold off fractionally.
Investors have increased their appetite for risk as the market continues to climb to new highs. There was a tremendous amount of fear in April that growth was not going to be sufficient to maintain such lofty levels on the major averages. Economic data was beginning to surprise to the downside and many felt that a long awaited pullback was just around the corner.
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