What is more notable is that earlier today, the ECB lobbed another trial balloon via its favorite media outlet, Reuters, in which we read that a new mutiny may be forming within the ECB, where the doves find Lagarde not dovish enough, while the hawks demand a prompt retraction of the massive liquidity stimulus that has been unleashed in recent months: mehr hier
In recent weeks, there has been a lot of talk about the role of the world’s central bankers going forward. With that in mind, now seems like a good time to recap the market bailout operations during the past few years… to get some insights into how this all ends (spoiler alert – not well)! mehr hier
In Germany, one of the few European economies that has weathered the virus crisis reasonably well, an estimated 550,000 firms – roughly one-sixth of the total – could already be classified as “zombies”, according to research by the credit agency Creditreform. It’s a similar story in Switzerland. mehr hier
According to a newly released study, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have discovered that Internet searches on gastrointestinal symptoms predicted a rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases weeks later with a surprisingly high degree of regularity. mehr hier
We have been watching, with disbelief and bemusement, how the “recovery-narrative” has been touted in the financial media and among some economists and analysts. Categorically, an economic recovery is a period of expansion, where we eventually exceed the previous peak in employment and output. There’s no such thing coming (anytime soon). It is very human to avoid acknowledging disturbing possibilities, such as the looming economic abyss the world economy is about to sink into, but now we absolutely need to perceive coldly the economic realities as they are. Otherwise, the effects of the approaching turmoil will be unbearable. mehr hier
Given the way the euro has been rallying in the foreign exchange markets over the past three months, you would be forgiven for thinking the currency has become a beacon of stability in uncertain times. You couldn’t be further from the truth. mehr hier
It’s emerging on Monday that Trump’s plane had a near-miss with a small drone on Sunday as it approached Washington DC for landing. Multiple people on board Air Force One reported seeing a yellow and black device flying nearby, said to be shaped like a cross, which came just off the right side of the aircraft soon before touching down at 5:54pm. mehr hier
A collapse of major chunks of the economy is widely viewed as “impossible” because the federal government can borrow and spend unlimited amounts of money because the Federal Reserve can create unlimited amounts of money: the government borrows $1 trillion by selling $1 trillion in Treasury bonds, the Fed prints $1 trillion dollars to buy the bonds. Rinse and repeat to near-infinity. weiter hier
The most significant stock in the U.S. and nearly the world, Apple, keeps powering higher. At the end of June, the value of Apple alone was almost 80% of the Russell 2000 index’s market capitalization. As of today, it’s nearly 90%. Such is astounding – in the past 40 years, no single stock has come close to dwarfing the value of so many other companies. “ mehr hier
Yesterday, we reported that a former Wirecard business partner named Christopher Bauer who likely played a key role in the $2 billion accounting fraud that was exposed in June, precipitating the company’s slide into bankruptcy, had apparently turned up dead in Manila. Or that’s at least what Bauer wanted the world to think. As the FT’s digging into Wirecard’s sprawling fraud takes its reporters across Southeast Asia, the paper’s intrepid reporters have apparently found a series of suspicious loans to Bauer’s third-party company, an couple other Wirecard ‘payment partners’ that look more like the company was being looted by executives and probable participants in the fraud right before the hammer came down. mehr hier
The Swiss population owns 920 tonnes in private gold, next to 1,040 tonnes in official gold reserves. In total, Switzerland likely has the highest amount of gold per capita in the world. Details hier