Global e-Commerce Adoption Isn’t Slowing — It’s Accelerating, and Has Massive Tailwinds U.S. e-Commerce Share Gains (vs Retail) Source: Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Most investors probably have the impression that e-commerce has moved beyond its initial stages of rapid growth and into a slower and more “mature” growth pattern. However, Read more…
Market Summary Pundits Are Wrong Again: Europe Continues to Grow post-Brexit Prior to the Brexit vote, many pundits were pushing the narrative that Brexit fears would create a big decline in business’ expansion plans. They believed that the fear of future economic decline would make businesses want to retrench. It Read more…
Market Summary The Brexit vote and the rise of anti-E.U. parties in Europe show that big changes are underway. Europe The coming changes will be more pronounced in Europe than in the U.K., although the U.K. will also suffer volatility and aftershocks as negotiations to start the withdrawal get underway. Read more…
Executive Summary 1. Market summary. The movement of the U.S. dollar will be the key determinant of the direction of U.S. stocks, gold, and oil — and a great deal about the direction of the U.S. currency and market depends on the coming U.S. election. In our view, the election Read more…
Market Summary A year ago, in our letter of April 30, 2015, we noted: “While we do not see a crisis as imminent, we believe that a global debt liquidation is becoming a more obvious eventuality sometime in the next two to three years.” Since then we have continued to Read more…
Market Summary Economics, U.S. and Global U.S. employment numbers are positive for the last few months, and U.S. industrial production is increasing as we have predicted in these pages. The unemployment rate has fallen to 6.1 percent, and the U6 — often called the underemployment rate — has fallen to 12.1 percent. Read more…
Regulators are Forcing Banks to Get More Conservative Last Wednesday, Federal Reserve governor Daniel Tarullo addressed the Fed’s symposium on stress test modelling. This is a now-annual gathering of Fed officials and financial industry participants, where the discussion focuses on the Fed’s efforts to evaluate the strength of banks in the face Read more…
U.S. Hegemony, Global Flashpoints, and Military Spending In February, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered the Obama administration’s proposed 2015 defense budget. It was notable for the reduction of the U.S. Army to its lowest force level since World War II. It envisions “a military capable of defeating any adversary, but too small Read more…
Cross-Currents Affecting the Markets We see many cross-currents that are currently, or soon will be, affecting U.S. and European markets and thepsychology of investors: Positives: 1. Money is leaving money market funds and moving into stocks in a big way. Interest rates have risen slightly, yet money market funds pay virtually Read more…
Regulatory Burden, Productivity Growth, and Jobs At the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, economists and market participants are surveyed, among other things, about the regulatory burdens faced in their countries. The results of this year’s survey, like those of the last few years, were not encouraging for the United States. Read more…
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