Veren of Lood biedt u op zondag wekelijks een inkijkje in (minstens) 10 belangrijke of informatieve artikelen en interviews die de voorafgaande 7 dagen op economisch terrein verschenen op onafhankelijke sites.

De kop is de link naar het oorspronkelijke artikel, waarvan de samenvatting of de eerste (twee) alinea’s hier gegeven zijn.

Sinds begin december 2015 nemen we ook een paar extra links op naar artikelen die minder specialistische kennis vereisen. Deze met *** gemerkte artikelen zijn ons inziens ook interessant voor lezers met weinig basiskennis van economie.

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Cheap Oil, the U.S. Dollar and the Deep State – Chafles Hugh Smith
9 maart
All this is to suggest that those expecting a major weakening in the USD to push oil higher shouldn’t hold their breath awaiting this outcome.
That oil fell off a cliff once the U.S. dollar (USD) began its liftoff in mid-2014 is, well, interesting. Causation, correlation or coincidence? There are a variety of opinions on this, as there should be. What we do know is the soaring USD blew up a bunch of carry trades that borrowed money denominated in USD and invested the cash in emerging markets paying much higher yields.
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Desperate “Dumb Money” from China Arrives in the US – Wolf Richter
9 maart
Every now and then we get a sign.
Money creation in China has gone bonkers. Authorities have opened the valves, and new credit is surging through money pipelines, including state-owned banks and the “shadow banking” system, and so loans in just the first two months this year soared by $1 trillion. Where did this money go?
We don’t know, but we’re getting indications that some of it is showing up right here in the US.
At the same time, “China is getting into the venture capital business in a big way. A really, really big way,” as Bloomberg put it: Government-backed venture funds raised about 1.5 trillion yuan ($231 billion) last year to bring the total to 2.2 trillion yuan. “That’s the biggest pot of money for startups in the world and almost five times the sum raised by other venture firms last year globally….”
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*** This is Why I Don’t Short Anything Anymore – Wolf Richter
8 maart
The moment of maximum pain.
Goldman Sachs called for the end of the epic short-covering rally that had whipped crude oil, oil & gas drillers, and the broader markets into froth over the past three weeks. As if on cue, the rally started to unwind today. But it was scheduled for demise from get-go. When oil fundamentals are this terrible, they eventually rule.
And here is what that rally did: It inflicted maximum pain and destruction on the short sellers that had piled into the trade.
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Free Trade Is the Path to Prosperity – Georgi Vuldzhev
7 maart
The political circus of the 2016 presidential election has revived and reinvigorated popular belief in age-old protectionist fallacies. Currently both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are both in favor of expanding protectionist trade policy, with both of them arguing that free trade “destroys” jobs and hurts domestic workers and producers by exposing them to foreign competition. Both candidates espouse an utterly misguided zero-sum view of economics, in which one side to an exchange wins only when the other side loses. Both men are, of course, completely wrong.
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NIESR Conference: “Economics of the UK’s EU Membership” – Angus Armstrong
9 maart
The upcoming vote on the UK’s membership of the EU has sparked a vibrant debate on topics ranging from sovereignty and sterling to migrants and the military. This column discusses evidence on the economics of Britain’s EU membership drawn from a recent conference where both sides of the debate were represented.
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A Profitless Recession – Charles Hugh Smith
7 maart
Since stock markets are ultimately underpinned by corporate profits, let’s ask: What factors could crush profits in 2016?
The basic idea of a balance sheet recession (attributed to Richard Koo) has been well-publicized: when the liability (debt) side of household and business ledgers reach danger heights, stakeholders respond by reducing debt and increasing savings rather than increasing spending and debt.
The result is a slowdown, a balance sheet recession.
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International business cycle synchronisation: The role of financial linkages – Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi, Jean Imbs, Jumana Saleheen
8 maart
It is well known that financial integration has increased dramatically over the past few decades. This column asks whether this rise has led to greater or less business cycle synchronisation. The answer depends crucially on the source of the shock. In response to common shocks, financial integration tends to lower business cycle synchronisation. In response to a country-specific shock, however, business cycles are more synchronised between countries that are more financially integrated.
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The IMF and the Next Crisis – Joseph Joyce
9 maart
The IMF has issued a warning that “increasing financial market turbulence and falling asset prices” are weakening the global economy, which already faces headwinds due to the “…modest recovery in advanced economies, China’s rebalancing, the weaker-than-expected growth impact from lower oil prices, and generally diminished growth prospects in emerging and low-income economies.” In its report to the finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of 20 nations before their meeting in Shangahi, the IMF called on the G20 policymakers to undertake “…bold multilateral actions to boost growth and contain risk.” But will the IMF itself be prepared for the next crisis?
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Bundesbank Fears “Doom Loop” – Wolf Richter
11 maart
But Draghi Still Doesn’t Get it.
“ECB barrel-scraping getting louder” – that’s what Daiwa Capital Markets called it. But those acts of desperation, as sweet as they seem to the markets, had slammed into opposition at the German Bundesbank. And now “people familiar with the matter” and a “central bank source” are talking to the Wall Street Journal to air their concerns.
Yesterday, the ECB bent over backwards to increase the negative interest rate absurdity, given how well it has been working so far. It cut its deposit rate one notch to negative 0.4%. That was less than expected. But it also added a slew of “surprises” intended for the markets to feed on and soar.
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Media attention and investment decisions – Ron Kaniel, Robert Parham
6 maart
Correlations between media attention and capital flows to investment vehicles are well established. However, the question arises of whether this is due to new information conveyed or if it is just an artefact of the attention itself. This column employs fund rankings from the Wall Street Journal to investigate the issue. It shows that media attention does drive these investment decisions, even if no new information is conveyed. It further argues that financial intermediaries are aware of this effect and exploit it.
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China: A 5-Year Plan And 50 Million Jobs Lost – Raúl Ilargi Meijer
6 maart
China never had an actual economic model or growth model. It simply printed an obscene amount of money, especially after 2008, and used it to build factories, 30-story see-through apartment blocks and highways into nowhere cities, without giving much if any thought to where this would lead when their formerly rich western customers had less to spend on its ever increasing amount of ever more useless products, or when its workers would stop spending ever more on apartments as investments, or when no more roads and bridges were needed because nowhere was already in plain sight. Or all of the above. It was ‘to infinity and beyond’ from the start, but that’s a line from a kids’ fantasy story, not a 5-year plan or an economic model.
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*** Saudi Arabia Turns to Nightmare for Spanish Consortium – Don Quijones
12 maart
When, in October 2011, the Saudi Railways Organization (SRO) announced its decision to award the bid to build a high-speed rail line between Medina and Mecca to a Saudi-Spanish consortium, it was like a dream come true for the Spanish infrastructure and rail companies involved. Decades of patient lobbying of the House of Saud by Spain’s former King Juan Carlos I had finally paid off.
Never before had Spanish companies won a tender for a project so big, so prestigious and so lucrative on the Arabian peninsula. The project’s total contract value is worth €6.74 billion. But the dream is already souring. What was originally meant to be a pioneering feat of engineering and the perfect global showcase for Spain’s mastery of high-speed rail infrastructure is now plagued by political intrigue, delays, and technical problems.
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The Moment Of Truth – What The Charts Say – Northman Trader
12 maart
We have arrived. The moment of truth. If you have followed my writings you know I’ve been talking about the January gap fill and major MA reconnects to come for quite some time. No matter whether you believe this to be a bull market ready to re-assert itself or you view the recent rally in the context of a bear market about to unfold you must acknowledge the pivotal nature of where the market now finds itself in the days ahead.
The $SPX has just rallied 11.6% off of the February lows and is about to return to the scene of the crime: The January gap.
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Disclaimer: De VoL-redactie selecteert deze artikelen op interessante inzichten, of naar wij denken nuttige informatie. Wij kunnen echter geen enkele aansprakelijkheid aanvaarden voor de gevolgen van beslissingen die op grond hiervan door lezers zijn genomen, zakelijk zomin als privé.