Business

Below is my latest post on The Institutional Risk Analyst -- Chris

S&P futures were fractionally higher (+0.1% to 2,476) with all eyes on the Fed's rate decision as investors await another earnings deluge from companies including Facebook, Coca-Cola and Boeing. Asian and European shares were also higher, prompted by momentum from the latest US record high; the Dollar rebound continued while oil rose above $48 as copper hit a two year high.

A few weeks ago, we wrote a note about how European auto lenders are becoming just about as ridiculously undisciplined as their counterparts in the United States.  Apparently an ever-growing reliance of European millennials on lease financing has auto ABS investors worried about a potential crash in used car prices at some point in the not so distant future...that sound familiar to anyone?  (See: It's Not Just Americans, Europe's New Obsession With Auto Leases Is "Catastrophic For Used Car Prices")

A Singapore startup called TenX has designed a Visa card capable of debiting users’ cryptocurrency wallets, allowing them to pay for goods at brick-and-motor merchants with bitcoin, Ethereum and a handful of other digital currencies, according to Bloomberg.

The question now is: Will anybody use it?

TenX’s business model is straightforward: It allows its users to pay for goods in a given fiat currency, then “instantly converts” cryptocurrency from their wallet into the amount needed to cover the transaction.

Janus Portfolio Manager and purported “bond king” Bill Gross appeared on “Bloomberg Markets” to discuss his latest investor letter, in which he criticized loose-money policies of the world’s central banks, comparing them to gluttons who’ve feasted on bonds.

The unprecedented stimulus measures adopted by the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and others have created distortions in markets, rendering widely followed historical models like the Philips Curve and Taylor rule useless, Gross said.