Via The Daily Bell
$60 Billion plus is the U.S. dollar equivalent to how much Bitcoin is currently in circulation. That amount of money would keep the Estonian government running at current expenditures for almost 60 years.
$60 billion is more than double Estonia's Gross Domestic Product.
If a surge in covenant-lite levered loans is any indication that debt and equity markets are nearing the final stages of their bubbly ascent, then perhaps now is a good time for investors to take their profits and run. As the Wall Street Journal points out this morning, levered loans volumes in the U.S. are once again surging, eclipsing even 2007 levels, despite the complete implosion of bricks-and-mortar retailers and continued warnings that "the market is getting frothy."
Authored by Paul Brodsky via Macro-Allocation.com,
Golden Age
Once upon a time the capital markets consisted of a fairly closed community, comprised on one side by mostly clever, well-connected men working together in syndicate to maintain control over national economic and financial affairs, and on the other side by mostly high earners spread disparately across the land hobnobbing with the syndicate’s local representatives.
As last week ended, VIX was crushed back near record lows to ensure the S&P 500 closed above 2500 and to prove all is well in the world - despite quakes, storms, floods, nukes, and worst of all... Fed balance sheet unwind plans.
And VIX speculators have never been more short (implicitly levered long stocks)...
So why, given all this exuberance and complacency, is uncertainty around VIX's future trajectory at relative record highs?
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
When the price of oil rises to the point of pain, just remember the handy-dandy discount mechanism: a much stronger US dollar.