Business

The G-20 Shanghai summit was a dud; China's People's Congress fizzled (even if it unleashed the biggest iron ore rally in history, however brief); and so - in a month full of expectations for major policy stimulus (which have so far been vastly disappointing), we approach the one event that is most actionable: the ECB's March 10 meeting and press conference, where expectations are, just like back on December 3, so great - some expect up to a 20 bps rate cut to -0.5%, others expect QE to be increased from €60BN to €70BN per month, yet others believe that Draghi will either extend the TLTRO,

Just when you thoughjt it was safe to chase the biggest short squeeze in history Fed vice-chair Fischer f##ked it all up...

The US equity market has only been more overbought 3 days in history...

Only Small Caps are green now as the fallout from Fischer's inflation furore escalates...

With the S&P 500 trading back above 2,000, it appears The Fed needed to do something to tamp down the enthusiasm exhibited by this manic short squeeze. As Fed vice-chair unleashed the following: "We may be seeing the first stirrings of higher inflastion," the short-squeeze ended and everything reversed...

• *FISCHER: WE MAY BE SEEING `FIRST STIRRINGS' OF HIGHER INFLATION

Killing the short squeeze...

Sending gold higher and stocks and crude lower...

There’s a lot of talk going around these days about “helicopter money.”

For those unfamiliar, it’s billed as a kind of last Keynesian resort when ZIRP, NIRP, and QE have all failed to boost aggregate demand and juice inflation.

For instance, HSBC said the following late last month: “If central banks do not achieve their medium-term inflation targets through NIRP, they may have to adopt other policy measures: looser fiscal policy and even helicopter money are possible in scenarios beyond QE and negative rates.”