Wrap

The deflationary trend continues: bonds were up, the 10Y stands at 1.56%. The NDX was up 1.5%, other markets less, but consistent with a deflationary trend. New jobs created were fewer than expected, but unemployment decreased more. Hourly wages increased 0.5% MoM, more than the 0 …

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Wrap

Jobs numbers from ADP indicated a strengthening recovery, which (perversely) drove stocks and bonds down, as it suggested inflation, and Fed tapering (I guess). The dollar was up, and commodities down (almost as a reflex reaction). Tesla had some very bad sales numbers coming out of China, but ‘only …

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Wrap

Markets were pretty dead: SPX, 10Y yield, DXY, even gold were pretty flat. Oil was up 1.5%, as were some energy stocks. The only excitement was $AMC going up 95%, through manipulation by the Reddit WSB crowd. European stocks were up.

There was not much news: everyone is …

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Overview

The fifth month of the year has started, and evidence of life in markets seems to be flowing back. Most commodities were up, especially ones that respond to inflation. Copper and gold benefited, as did oil. Even natural gas joined in with the party (up 3.6%). Unsurprisingly, the …

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HS2 will damage the home counties

High-speed rail may hurt intermediate places: The role of long-haul economies.

This is a long-term study of the impact of the Shinkansen trains in Japan.

DeFi, or how to start your own crypto-currency bank

This is a great article. It goes through why lending …

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Chinese puzzle

This piece appeared in Grant’s Almost Daily Faulty Towers. You can subscribe for free via the main website. I enjoy Grant’s take on the market, but this daily letter is as much as I can get through.

Grant’s called out the craziness of the Global …

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The Efficient Market Hypothesis considered a source of cognitive dissonance

So nobody really believes the EMH. Everyone wants to feel good about spotting something that the rest of the market has overlooked.

Nobody wants to believe Cramer, or the dull analyst reports from the bulge bracket banks. But, on the …

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Wrap

The market was flat today. Bonds were unchanged; oil was flat, the dollar moved back up, but only to retrace it’s move of yesterday. EUR.USD is 1.22, pretty much where it was three months ago. US equities were up a bit, QQQ being ahead of the …

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George Stigler and regulatory capture

The Theory of Economic Regulation

George J. Stigler

The Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science

Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring, 1971), pp. 3-21 (19 pages)

This article is fifty years old. I am not sure I’ve ever read the original, but the ideas …

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Australia-UK Trade deal

The UK has singularly failed to establish any trade deals which are materially better than they already had as members of the EU. The current great white hope is one with Australia. The problem seems to be that farmers object to having to face competition from …

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