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.
"Like watching paint dry," is how The Fed describes the beginning of the end of its experiment with massively inflating its balance sheet to save the world. As former fund manager Richard Breslow notes, however, Yellen's decision today means the risk-suppression boot is on the other foot (or feet) of The SNB, The ECB, and The BoJ; as he writes, "have no fear, The SNB knows what it's doing."
After July's housing sales data horrors, yesterday's permits rebound prompted some hope (despite last week's 9.7% collapse in mortgage applications) but August's existing home sales just crushed that dream, dropping to one-year lows. Following a 1.3% MoM decline in July, August saw existing home sales tumble 1.7% MoM (against expectations of a 0.2% rebound) and up just 0.2% YoY.
This is the 3rd monthly decline in a row...
Dropping SAAR sales to one year lows...
With stocks at all time highs, Dennis Gartman, who took the time to make a quick mockery of cryptocurrencies in his latest letter, is starting to get nervous on risk assets, pointing out what he calls an "anomaly." Below are the selected excerpts from his latest note:
THE S&P FUTURES: They Rise While Volume Falls!: We are still erring bullishly of the equity market, but we do find it passing strange that as the market has moved higher the volumes being transacted are plunging… and aren’t price and volume to move in concert, one with the other?.
Let the farce begin.
The Fed meets today to discuss whether or not to begin shrinking its balance sheet. The financial media informs us that this is the single most important Fed meeting in years and that its coming announcement is a game-changer.
Give me a break.