Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.
The Grim Reaper has taken his scythe to the Venezuelan bolivar. The death of the bolivar is depicted in the following chart. A bolivar is worthless, and with its collapse, Venezuela is witnessing the world’s worst inflation.
While all eyes have been focused on the collapse in US equity market volatility and its unending upward ramp in the face of 'event risk' large and small, the complacency has crossed the Pacific and crushed China's stock markets to a shadow of their former selves.
While we noted yesterday the seasonal tendency towards lower volatility around this time of year...
Following yesterday's US decision to decline a visa for a Justice ministry delegation, it was Germany's turn today to put the screws to Turkey. As Bloomberg reports, Germany is actively working to cut funding to Turkey from the country’s state-owned KfW bank, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, people familiar with the matter say.
Carlyle, the favorite private equity firm of Washington D.C. and the "military industrial complex", has named two executives as successors to the ageing founders of the $158 billion fund, the latest rare move in an industry where similar succession plans are not usually telegraphed in advance. Kewsong Lee and Glenn Youngkin have been appointed as co-chief executive officers, while Peter Clare will become co-chief investment officer alongside one of the founders.
S&P futures are fractionally in the red while traders await President Trump’s pick for Fed chair and more clues on the fate of tax reform; Asian stocks slide, European shares are little changed ahead of tomorrow's ECB tapering announcement as US 10Y yields finally break out of their multi-month range below 2.40%...