The King Has No Clothes Currency “Bitcoin mania reached new highs as the price of the digital currency jumped about 40% in about 40 hours, surging past the $16,000 mark.” —The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 8, 2017). Why is gold valuable? Mostly, because you can buy things with it, and only (very) secondarily, because you...Read More
Call it “Financial Darwinism” “Bitcoin Surges Above $5,200 on Hopes of Renewed China Trade.” —The Wall Street Journal (10/12/2017). No, I’m not rooting for Bitcoin to skyrocket to the heavens because I have a position in it. God forbid! Rather, it’s because I see Bitcoin serving a useful economic purpose. Two, in fact: One. Lightning rod. ...Read More
When Rigged Markets Become Unrigged “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” –Abraham Maslow “When asset bubbles predominate, everything looks like a pin.” –Corollary; Ross Kaplan In over 40 years(!) watching the stock market, I’ve conservatively witnessed at least 100 dips of 5% or more (20% corrections are rarer, and...Read More
Turning Keynes Inside Out “Markets can stay irrational longer than investors can stay solvent.” –John Maynard Keynes In light of The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented, going-on-six-year campaign of monetary stimulus, perhaps the question to ask isn’t, “why are stocks trading at record levels?” Rather, it’s “why aren’t stocks even higher?” My answer: because at least some...Read More
The “Alice in Wonderland” Stock Market; or, Figuring Out What the Fed Will Do “The next level analysis is [determining] whether . . . good news is bad (meaning less accommodation) or good (economic improvement); or conversely, whether bad news is good (meaning more accommodation) or bad (economic deterioration).” –Barry Ritholtz, “Predicting Jobs Data is Hard...Read More
David Stockman: ‘Get Out of the Markets & Hide Out in Cash’ “The United States is broke ” fiscally, morally, intellectually. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse.” –David Stockman, “State-Wrecked: the Corruption of Capitalism in America“; The New York Times (March 30, 2013) The scary prediction above comes...Read More
