Yesterday, in its latest triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, the Fed admitted what had been obvious to everyone else: Fed policies unleashed over the past decade have made the rich richer, even as the American middle class has continued to shrink.
While the establishment including various central banks, China (which has a "modest" capital flight problem), commercial banks such as JPM and especially its CEO Jamie Dimon who called Bitcoin a 'fraud" similar to the tulip bubble of the 17th century, have come out as harsh opponents of cryptocurrencies, some notable "minority oppinions" have emerged in recent days, such as Morgan Stanley's CEO, James Gorman, who yesterday suggested that Dimon is wrong and that "Bitcoin is certainly more than a fad... the concept of an anonymous currency is an interesting concept."
As noted earlier, the return of the "Trump Trade", however brief, on the back of tax reform euphoria and Hawkish Yellen has dominated market sentiment, resulting in the latest bond market "crash", sending yields to a nearly three month high of 2.35% earlier this morning, and as Bill Blain showed in a chart, it took just three weeks to reverse the fall we saw in July and August, up 30bps in days, while Bunds are up 20bp and even JGBs are up 5bp (far greater rises in relative terms).
In a continuation of trading patterns observed over the previous two days, on Thursday the global bond rout deepened in the aftermath of the release of President Trump’s tax-cut plan, Janet Yellen's recent hawkish comments and renewed optimism over the health of the U.S. economy.
Just days after The Economist primed the world with its narrative that sending 1.2 bilion unskilled Africans to Europe would increase global GDP, The EU's executive has unveiled plans to resettle at least 50,000 refugees, focusing on people from northern Africa, to bypass smugglers.
As we noted previously, The Economist's argument is plain idiotic.