Business

IceCap Asset Management's Monthly outlook on global investment markets: October 2017, submitted by Keith Decker of IceCap Asset Management

“Should I Stay or Should I Go?”

Darlin’ you got to let me know

During the 1970s, The Clash pushed rock and roll to the edge. Their hard charging, explosive, and anger-filled style, inspired spiked hair, rocked generations and forced people to question conventional thinking.

Yen is weaker and Japanese equity futures notably higher following a landslide election victory for Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe which theoretically ushers in yet more easy monetary policy.

USDJPY tried to run stos at 114.00 but failed (for now). However, NKY futures are up almost 1% in the pre-market...

The main risk event in the coming week, in addition to a barrage of corporate earnings, will be the ECB's long-awaited announcement of what the central bank's QE tapering will look like.

Last week, the simmering scandal involving Japan's third largest steel producer exploded, when following reports that Kobe Steel had falsified data about the quality of its steel, aluminum, copper, iron powder and other products it sold to customers across virtually every single industry, Japan's Nikkei also reported that some Kobe Steel plants in Japan had been falsifying product quality data for decades, well beyond the roughly 10-year time frame given by the lying steelmaker.

It's confusing to be a Goldman client these days.

One month after the investment bank reported that its Bear Market Risk indicator had jumped to 67%, a level it hit most recently before the dot com bubble crash and just before the global financial crisis and prompted Goldman to ask "should we be worried now"...