Ideas and analysis on money, markets and the world around us.
Global oil prices (Brent) continue to trade in a narrow USD45-55/bbl price range, reversing from a brief breakout to the upside last week. However, although prices are now back to where we started at the beginning of…
Read the articleGold and silver drifted lower in declining volume. On Tuesday, the day of tonight’s Commitment of Traders report, gold’s Comex turnover fell to 211,897 contracts, compared with more normal days of 300,000 to 450,000.…
Read the articleLast week, both Janet Yellen of the Fed and Mark Carney of the Bank of England prepared financial markets for interest rate increases. The working assumption should be that this was coordinated, and that both the ECB…
Read the articleConclusion: This weeks DOE statistics look very bullish at first sight with large counter-seasonal draws in total petroleum and – contrary to initial concerns after the storm – those draws occurred mainly in crude.…
Read the articleIn Britain, the top 1% of earners pay over a quarter of all income tax collected, and while super-rich British residents perhaps don’t have the tax breaks the Macklowes enjoy, the bulk of the burden falls on lawyers,…
Read the articleConclusion: This weeks DOE statistics remained impacted by Hurricane Harvey, but the dust slowly settles. While stocks remain in draw mode, and surprisingly, crude stocks drew, we need to see how imports develop over…
Read the articleGold and silver were sharply down this week, with gold off $23 at $1297 from last Friday’s close in early European trade early this morning (Friday), and silver off 56 cents at $17.03 on the same time scale. As can be…
Read the articleThe global economy is now in an expansionary phase, with bank credit being increasingly available for non-financial borrowers. This is always the prelude to the crisis phase of the credit cycle. Most national economies…
Read the articleConclusion: The weekly DOE statistics are still heavily impacted by the aftermath of hurricane Harvey in this weeks stats and will remain impacted for a few weeks. The numbers look very bullish at first sight, but part…
Read the articleAfter the spectacular run from the lows of early July, gold and silver took a breather this week. Bullion markets on Comex had become very overbought, so a pause was inevitable, and healthy. In early European trading…
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