Category: Forecasts
Poll: Can China avoid a hard landing?
There are a lot of different opinions on this one. What’s yours
Edward Harrison’s Ten Surprises for 2012 (short version)
Yesterday morning, I did the first weekly newsletter on my ten surprises for 2012. Here’s a brief version of the list
John Mauldin: The Matterhorn Interview
Investment advisor John Mauldin explains his attitude towards austerity measures; a return of the gold standard; the euro crisis; and the willingness to bailout everyone that makes capitalism and monetary systems stop working
On the ECB’s Long-Term Refinancing Operation and 2012 macro ideas for investors
The end of year is usually a good time for markets. There was a lot of angst about the European situation a few weeks ago, but there is less of that now because we’re hitting year-end (tape painting). Does that mean the credit crisis situation is stable? No, but it has stabilised somewhat. 2012 will be a different story though. I talked about the European sovereign debt crisis and my themes for 2012 with Howard Green of BNN and Ryan Avent of the Economist yesterday. The link to the video is below but let me say a bit more, particularly about today’s LTRO by the ECB. I’ll try to be brief
The 2012 Blind Side: China’s Housing Bust
Foreign Affairs has just posted a must read piece, “China’s Real Estate Bubble May Have Just Popped”, which will sound very familiar to Global Macro Monitor readers. We’re going to be spend a lot time over the holidays thinking how this plays out in China’s financial sector and the implications for markets
Forecasting misconceptions and the likelihood of European financial repression
Market participants, including economists and strategists are prone to confusing what they believe should be the case with what will be the case
Steve Keen on HARDtalk on the financial crisis and the economy
This time it’s Steve Keen on the hotseat on HARDtalk. Now, Steve is one of the few economists who actually predicted the global financial crisis. But what about the possibility of another Great Depression? That possibility and how to avoid it were the topics of conversation in this 25-minute interview. Great stuff
Running through Italian unilateral euro zone exit scenarios
A unilateral exit would be a devastating event for Italy and the euro zone. Inflation would be high but bank and national solvency issues would recede. If the exit were done under these nationalistic pre-conditions of redomination, most of the adjustment burden would fall on foreign creditors. Italy would become export competitive again and could focus on economic growth strategies instead of ones of fiscal adjustment
Why France will be forced out of the eurozone
“Faced with a choice between permanent slump and rising debt burdens (as economic contraction and deflation leads to inexorable increases in debt), countries will elect to quit the currency union. At least that route will allow them to print money, recapitalise their banks and escape deflation. Once Spain or Italy opts for this, an unravelling of the eurozone will be unstoppable.”
What US GDP and jobless claims say about the US economy
We got two good proxies for the economic trajectory in the US this morning at 830 AM. Jobless claims were 402,000 with the 4-week moving average now settling in at 405,500. GDP rose an annualized 2.5% in the third quarter according to the government’s advanced estimate. In the second quarter, real GDP had risen 1.3%
Felix Zulauf says the die is cast. Is it?
I was just looking at Barry Ritholtz’s synopsis of Felix Zulauf’s observations from an in-office interview Barry had with him and I have to say I agree with the man 100%. But is the die cast? Are we headed into something much worse
Is it Over Yet?
It was telling that, just as the ECRI and other notable research outfits decided to push the recession button on the US economy, the data flow became notably more positive. This could be a sign of the times, that the cycle is just too volatile for even capable analysts to call or it could simply be a blip in otherwise fundamental economic weakness that is here to stay for now. I have been working with and building economic models for a while and all I can say is that they are seldom 100% right and the margin of error is always there when analysts make calls. The key is your ability to make calls which are transparent and add value for decision makers when they are made