Business

Last week, we reported on the ECB’s decision to cut the interest rates and how Mario Draghi said ‘helicopter money’ is ‘an interesting concept that is being studied’. In the accompanying Q&A session, Draghi also said he did not expect the ECB would have to reduce the (already negative) interest rates even further which disappointed the markets. In fact, the disappointment was so big, the ECB already sent one of its members into the trenches to walk back on that statement.

When you look out across markets and across the increasingly fraught geopolitical landscape, there are plenty of black swans waiting in the wings (no pun intended). And quite a few of them are Chinese.

Popular US hotel chain Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide has, according to a Reuters report, become the first company from the US to sign a deal with Cuba since 1959: Starwood will manage and market two properties in Havana and signed a letter of intent to operate a third. Such deals would normally be prohibited under the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba, but Starwood received special permission from the U.S. Treasury Department last week.

By EconMatters

It is pretty ironic that Netflix disrupted Blockbuster, causing Blockbuster to go the bankruptcy route, and ultimately On Demand is already disrupting Netflix as we speak. This is a Sea Change in the space, the worm has turned because of the market arrival of On Demand through multiple alternative platforms. This deflationary trend means all media content is actually a depreciating long term asset base.

One of the more surprising market developments of 2016 has been the violent obliteration of those who had taken part in the biggest consensus trade of 2015, namely long the USD. As the Fed finally admitted earlier this week, the US economy is sputtering and is woefully incapable of handling 4 rate hikes, or 3 for that matter.