(Photo Credit: Radio Liberty)
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari is demanding immediate action to stop the rial’s freefall.
In an exceedingly rare public rebuke, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has called out his country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, demanding that he do more to gain control of the nation’s economy, which appears to be in a rapid death spiral ahead of implementation next week of the first round of U.S. sanctions. Continue reading
Albert Edwards joins RBS in warning of a new crash, saying oil price plunge and deflation from emerging markets will overwhelm central banks, tip the markets and collapse the eurozone
The City of London’s most vocal “bear” has warned that the world is heading for a financial crisis as severe as the crash of 2008-09 that could prompt the collapse of the eurozone.
Albert Edwards, strategist at the bank Société Générale, said the west was about to be hit by a wave of deflation from emerging market economies and that central banks were unaware of the disaster about to hit them. His comments came as analysts at Royal Bank of Scotland urged investors to “sell everything” ahead of an imminent stock market crash. Continue reading
In the past several months, it has been virtually impossible to make any sense of the conflicting trends involving US and global trade. On one hand, there is global trade, which as we have covered since the spring, has been in a state of consistent decline. Some example of this:
- World Trade Slumps By Most Since Financial Crisis
- Something Just Snapped: Container Freight Rates From Asia To Europe Crash 23% In One Week
- Global Trade In Freefall: Container Freight Rates From Asia To Europe Crash 60% In Three Weeks
- South Korea Exports Crash Most Since 2009
…
Where things get more complicated, however, is when looking at the US. Here, macro data throughout the summer had suggested more or less smooth sailing in the trade space, and it was only a week ago that the facade started to crack, following the ugly advance trade report, when as we reported there was a “16% Surge In August Trade Deficit; Imports Jump As Exports Drop.” Continue reading
(NaturalNews) China, the world’s second-largest economy, continues to show signs of a sharp slowdown, unnerving investors everywhere as markets begin falling worldwide. Continue reading
I have worked to keep this piece readable, and as brief as possible. My grave diagnosis demands the evidence and reasoning to support it. One cannot explain the collapse of this currency with the conventional view. “They will print money to infinity,” may be popular but it’s not accurate. The coming destruction has nothing to do with the quantity of money. It is a story of what happens when interest rates fall into a black hole.
Yields Have Fallen Beyond Zero
The Swiss yield curve looks like nothing so much as a sinking ship. All but the 20- and 30-year bonds are now below the water line.
Look at how much it’s submerged in just one week. The top line (yellow) is January 16, and the one below it was taken just a week later on January 23. It’s terrifying how fast the whole interest rate structure sank. Here is a graph of the 10-year bond since September. For comparison, the 10-year Treasury bond would not fit on this chart. The US bond currently pays 1.8%. Continue reading
The Japanese yen goes into freefall. China’s fragile economy tips over the edge. A wave of profit-crushing deflation comes washing over the U.S. and Europe. Investors panic.
That’s the view of perennial pessimist Albert Edwards. The London-based analyst and his team at investment bank Societe Generale SA have been ranked No. 1 for global strategy in surveys by Thomson Reuters Extel every year since 2007, even with a history of saying unpleasant things that few want to hear.
“My role is to step back from the excessive enthusiasm that builds up in the market, and to just say, ‘This is wrong. This is going to go horribly wrong,’” the 53-year-old said by phone last week. Continue reading
Global Geopolitics 