First, the facts:
At Powell's Nov 28th 2017 testimony to Congress, Powell said that as the Fed allows its 4 trillion dollar balance sheet to wind down, the US Treasury would issue new bonds to the market to replace them (so, technically, US notional debt will neither increase nor decrease as a result of QE).
Yesterday, we highlighted a one-page report prepared by the Treasury Department which claimed that – in what was perhaps one of the most unrealistically optimistic budget projections to ever be produced by the US government agency - the Senate’s version of the Republican tax plan would, somehow, bolster GDP to a 2.9% real growth rate over 10 years.
Isn’t the Whole Idea to Buy Low and Sell High?
Authored by Adam Baratta
When it comes to the gold market, perhaps the old saying should be changed to “buy low and sell high-if ever.” That is likely the mentality behind gold investors at this point, as the yellow metal remains stuck in a trading range.
Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,
But savers are still getting shafted.
Outstanding “revolving credit” owed by consumers – such as bank-issued and private-label credit cards – jumped 6.1% year-over-year to $977 billion in the third quarter, according to the Fed’s Board of Governors. When the holiday shopping season is over, it will exceed $1 trillion. At the same time, the Fed has set out to make this type of debt a lot more expensive.
After two warnings to investors (but no bans) from the SEC on ICOs, alt-coins like Ethereum and Litecoin have exploded higher in the last 24-48 hours, pushing the former over $60 billion market cap - bigger than GM and Aetna.
Interest in cryptocurrencies has been surging since futures launched (but volume in Bitcoin futures tumbled today relative to yesterday)...
Spot Bitcoin prices are holding near record highs...
But it seems investors in the crypto space are diversifying across the entire alt-coin space...