The danger of eliminating cash
In the early days of central banking, one primary objective of the new system was to take ownership of the public's gold, so that in a crisi...
Goldmoney Insights
Equity markets and credit contraction
There is one class of money that is constantly being created and destroyed, and that is bank credit. Bank credit is created when a bank len...
Welcome to the world of ZIRP zombies
Interest rates in the US, Europe and the UK were reduced to close to zero in the wake of the Lehman crisis nearly seven years ago. Initiall...
Derivatives and mass financial destruction
Globally systemically important banks (G-SIBs in the language of the Financial Stability Board) are to be bailed-in if they fail, moving the...
Renewed estimates of Chinese gold demand
Geopolitical and market background I have been revisiting estimates of the quantities of gold being absorbed by China, and yet again I have...
India and Gold
The Indian government made headlines recently with its attempts to obtain possession of the gold held by its citizens. It claims it is in t...
China’s five year plan and the end of an era.
China is in the late stages of constructing its thirteenth five-year plan, a process that commenced over a year ago and will result in a fir...
The Fed’s in a bind
One can understand the Fed's frustration over the failure of its interest rate policy, and its desire to escape the zero bound. However, si...
The new order emerges
China and Russia have taken the lead in establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), seen as a rival organisation to the Wo...
There’s a liquidity crunch developing
This week an article in Euromoney points out that liquidity in bond markets is drying up. The blame is laid at the door of regulations desig...