Posts made in January, 2019

Fed capitulation

Posted By Darren Winters on Jan 31, 2019

Fed capitulation could be interpreted as the US economic recovery, the shortest ever on record, fizzling out and heading for a recession, if the soft data is anything to go by. Here is the one-liner from Fed Chair Jay Powell confirming Fed capitulation on its monetary tightening policy which entailed Fed fund rate hikes and a winding down of assets on its balance sheet, quantitative tightening. “In light of global economic and...

US-China trade talk

Posted By Darren Winters on Jan 29, 2019

Stocks are back in the “the neutral zone” with major stock indices going nowhere in the past year, but US-China trade talks scheduled to take place mid-week (30-31 January) could be about to change all that. Pending US-China trade talks could lead to three likely scenarios which could determine the trajectory of stocks and perhaps even impact the Fed’s monetary policy going forward So here is the good, the bad and the ugly range...

Quantitative tightening

Posted By Darren Winters on Jan 24, 2019

The Fed’s Quantitative tightening became a major talking point for traders/investors particularly in the final quarter of 2018. What is Quantitative tightening? Quantitative tightening is a contractionary monetary policy applied by the Fed to reduce the amount of liquidity, sloshing around the financial markets with the aim of unwinding the everything bubble. So Quantitative tightening is, in essence, the reverse of Quantitative...

2019 financial market risks

Posted By Darren Winters on Jan 21, 2019

The Global Risk Report for 2019 makes interesting reading for turbulent times and it could also give investors/traders a heads up on how 2019 financial market risks might impact their investment portfolios going forward The latest Global Risk Report, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), 114 pages in total, spells out known and unknown risks, uncertainties for the year ahead. 2019 financial market risks are abundant, according...

Fed Impotence

Posted By Darren Winters on Jan 15, 2019

Fed impotence, in the face of another economic downturn, could become an issue for investors/traders in 2019. Economic reality suggests that the downturn could gain momentum this year with bearish data currently outweighing bullish data, a trend that seems likely to continue going forward. The retail apocalypse which saw 3,800 store closures across the US in 2018 is showing no signs of abating this year. The retail sector ended on a...