Category Archives: Market outlook

Currencies, European stock market, Market outlook

The eurozone is a German colony, the net exports of the member states explain

The eurozone’s economy is at the edge of collapse. Southern European countries experienced a sovereign debt crisis in 2010, and the unemployment rate in the euro area is still as high as nearly 10%. Italy rejected Mr Renzi’s pro-EU reform plan in the referendum, and in France, the anti-EU National Front’s Ms Le Pen is increasingly popular.

Yet what is the cause? Whilst the EU also faces the immigration crisis, the economic reason will be easily comprehended by only glancing at the trade statistics of the eurozone countries.

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Bond markets, History of markets, Market outlook, US bond markets, US stock market

Explaining how Reaganomics failed to act against the effects of rate hikes

Tax cuts, investment, the strong dollar and the twin deficits. For economists, Reaganomics is a very unique economic experiment. Looking at the GDP and the stock market in 1980s, it seems that Reaganomics was successful, but it is not well understood what exactly drove the economy. This article aims to explain why Reaganomics failed in the first few years and led to the later success, and what the cause was.

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Bond markets, Market outlook, US bond markets, US stock market

Hedge fund managers on President Trump’s economic policies

After Donald Trump won the presidential election 2016, the financial markets have reacted very dynamically, but investors also do not seem very determined about what the political shift would mean to the global markets.

Yet they would not be to blame, especially when even the world’s greatest hedge fund managers have diversified, different views. Some foresee rapid growth, whilst others still remain cautious. We introduce both in this article.

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Bond markets, Market outlook, US bond markets, US stock market

Fed rate hikes would seriously hurt the US economy, as 3Q GDP shows

The US GDP data for the third quarter of 2016 is what investors, including us, have been waiting for, because it is much more relevant for future rate hikes than the job data, which the Fed claims to be caring about.

The job data has already been very strong for a long time, and thus if the Fed’s preoccupation is indeed the labour market, it must have already raised rates this year, which is not the case.

So the Fed, or at least Janet Yellen, is caring about the slowdown of the US GDP growth, and the new data showed that the slowdown is indeed ongoing, and rate hakes, if any, would put an end to the already weak growth.

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History of markets, Market outlook, US stock market

How you could have predicted the financial crisis in 2008

It is not always easy to predict a collapse of a financial bubble, but there often is something that indicates it in advance.

In the case of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, some famed fund managers such as George Soros or John Paulson knew it could be as serious as it eventually happened to be. This article explains the economic situations during the crisis and shows the statistics that preceded to imply the timing of the collapse of the stock markets.

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Currencies, Market outlook, US stock market, USD/JPY

The dollar to fall as the GDP growth in 2Q radically weakens, secular stagnation looms

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis published the GDP data for the second quarter of 2016, and the real GDP growth turned out to be 1.23% (year-on-year), slowing down from 1.57% in the previous quarter. The US economy has been significantly slowing down in 2016 as we predicted last year, when it was growing more than 2%.

However, the published data this time suggests more detailed interpretation is necessary to predict the upcoming future of the US economy.

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Japanese stock market, Market outlook, News

2016 1Q Japan’s GDP: the economy grew negatively due to the market turmoil

In the first quarter of 2016, Japan’s real GDP grew -0.05% (year-on-year), slowing down from 0.85% in the previous quarter. This is the first time since 2013 for Japan’s economy to grow negatively, excluding the four quarters after the consumption tax hike.

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Commodity markets, Gold, Market outlook, News, US stock market

George Soros buys gold and a gold miner, short sells S&P 500

The Form 13F for the first quarter of 2016 has been published, and the portfolios of hedge fund managers revealed.

In the disclosure, Mr George Soros’s Soros Fund Management appeared to have started positions in gold and a gold miner and also to have continued short selling of US stocks as he claimed in Davos in January 2016.

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Market outlook, US stock market

2016 US REIT forecast: the Fed’s rate hikes, rate cuts and quantitative easing

Since the first rate hike in Dec 2015, the Fed has been in the course of normalizing interest rates. Although we as well as many of the famed hedge fund managers expect the central bank will eventually cease raising rates and resume easing, it is still reasonable to assume one or two rate hikes in 2016 are still possible.

Even if it happens, rate cuts will follow it anyway, but it is important for investors to consider how to trade on the temporary monetary tightening. As federal funds rates futures expect only one rate hike in 2016, two rate hikes will be a surprise if it happens.

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Market outlook, US stock market

Who was right about the US stocks in early 2016?: George Soros, Ray Dalio and Bill Gross

S&P 500 has recovered from the plunge in the beginning of 2016. Many famed hedge fund managers published their own view on the stock market, and who has been right so far? We would like to review the predictions by great investors such as George Soros, Ray Dalio and Bill Gross.

2016-4-20-s-and-p-500-chart

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