The Japanese public has dubbed 2007 the “Year of Deception.” Expected Japanese GDP growth for the year has been revised down from 2.1% to 1.3% and the stock market has fallen by 10%. I’ll return to whether the Japanese are right later, but the concept itself appears more generally applicable. There has in recent years […]

Observers of the credit crunch that has been bedeviling financial markets since August were mostly highly relieved this week when the European Central Bank injected some $500 billion into the world’s banking system via low cost funding and the Fed followed up with $40 billion of its own. This sharply lowered the premium that interbank […]

In the spirit of the endless year-end speculations about developments in 2008, I thought it worth looking at which markets – debt, equity, commodities or real estate — were most overvalued in December 2007 and hence could be expected to provide the best “bear food” for the year ahead. After all, for us bears picking […]

This column has since 2000 been calling for the Federal Reserve to institute a policy of much tighter money. In a sense, events since August have justified it; old fashioned consumer price inflation hasn’t reappeared, but the beginnings of a gigantic global asset price deflation are appearing. At this point, sudden adoption of the Bear’s […]

While the Chinese stock market, as measured by the China Securities Index 300, is down 18% since October 16, that follows a period of almost two years during which the CSI 300 had soared 535% since January 1, 2006. Chinese economic growth is currently running at over 11% and the big money is convinced that […]