Sunday, February 28, 2016

The Promise of the Joker And The Fool

"They were shocked and outraged to learn that printing money was not the secret to effortless wealth. No one told them"

The League of Extraordinary Money Printers just ended their meeting, but there was no commitment to buy up ghost cities, crack shacks, junk bonds, OPEC, Global GDP, collapsing trade or even Netflix. Quite the opposite, in fact...

"There is no positive surprise...Stocks may sell off a bit."



"An increasing sense monetary policy is reaching its limit permeated officials’ briefings" 

"[IMF Director] Lagarde...said Friday the effects of monetary policies, even innovative ones, are diminishing"

"Adding to an atmosphere of unease about further central bank actions, some officials expressed concern about Japan’s policies, after its surprise move to adopt negative interest rates last month roiled the currency market."




Mark Carney Warns Negative Interest Rates Are Beggar-Thy-Neighbour Policy
"for the world as a whole, this export of excess saving and transfer of demand weakness elsewhere is ultimately a zero-sum game. Moreover, to the extent it pushes greater savings onto the global markets, global short-term equilibrium rates would fall further, pulling the global economy closer to a liquidity trap. At the global zero bound, there is no free lunch.”


A Party Of One:

The major U.S. indices have rallied back into their August range, but almost every other global risk asset market remains below the August lows...

EM Stocks:



Oil



Dollar / Yen:



U.S. small caps



T-bond yields



European stocks




Japan



Hong Kong / China (not shown):




Canada



Financials



Transports




"Risk appetite" aka. Amazon