Did central banks just lose control of the world... again?
For the first time in four months, BofAML's Global Financial Market Stress index has turned positive - signalling more market stress than normal.
As the spat between North Korea and the U.S. worsened, a measure of cross-asset risk, hedging demand and investor flows awakened from its torpor (after spending 78 straight days below zero - with stress below normal).
While many of the largest cryptocurrencies are fading modestly this morning, Bitcoin is holding on to dramatic agains which saw the largest virtual currency spike to as high as $4190 as Yen, Yuan, and Won trading activity dominated volumes.
Bitcoin Cash remains in 4th place overall by market cap but Bitcoin is the only currency higher among the top 5 this morning.
Soaring past $4000...
By Steven Englander, head of research and strategy at Rafiki Capital Management
I propose a microeconomic rationale for why macro wage performance is so weak, despite tight labor markets. The idea is that we are getting paid less for our job-specific knowledge because technology is making it easier to replace us without major loss of productivity with less skilled workers. The implications for markets:
Chinese banking regulators’ efforts to force the country’s largest conglomerates to deleverage after an unprecedented binge on foreign assets has already spurred a pullback in foreign real-estate investment, part of a broader decline in foreign investment more generally.
But with wealthy Chinese buyers suddenly out of the real-estate market, housing analysts are anticipating a wave of sharp declines in housing prices in some of the world’s most expensive markets like New York City, London and Hong Kong.
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
Any time we hear the term "privatize" coming from the usual suspects in Washington, DC we should immediately be suspicious. When this word is used, there's usually precious little actual privatization going on.
Thus, we should regard the Trump administration's proposed plan to "privatize" the war in Afghanistan with extreme amounts of skepticism.
USAToday reports: