A wider perspective.

Ideas and analysis on money, markets and the world around us.

Madness of the crowds

Crowd psychology and the flow of hot money into and out of asset classes are what make markets tick. Statistical indicators often give a good record of what has just happened, but – as discussed in last week’s piece in…

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The problem with regulation

It is seems to be universally agreed that regulation is a good thing, ensuring that people are treated fairly by unscrupulous businesses. Regulation is a vindication of state intervention and control. The alternative is…

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Fear Index June 2013 the eye of the storm

US M3 is relatively steady at just over $15.1 trillion, following the disinflationary trend of the past few months. Although US M1 and M2 continue to grow, and the Fed has still not relented from its open-ended monthly…

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Rage against inflation

Amid all the talk recently about whether the Fed will or won’t “taper”, things have quietly (and not so quietly) been deteriorating in the Middle East. This has been causing something of an oil price tear in recent…

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Gold’s undervaluation is extreme

The price of gold fell last week to the $1,200 level. The lemming sentiment in capital markets is uniformly bearish, yet every price-drop brings forth hungry buyers for physical gold from all over the world. Even…

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Mid-year gold market review

At the beginning of the year, I wrote: “The financial system has become so abnormal, the Fed has to keep inflating to prevent the system from literally going off the rails. But the irony is that eventually the financial…

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