Greek Bonds Continue Massive Rally
Greek Government bonds continued their rally into the first week of the 2018. The benchmark 10-year bond now yields 3.75%, the lowest since March 2006. It was at 8% a year ago. The star of the...
View ArticleGreek GDP - A Better Estimate
I have in previous posts expressed my doubts about official Greek GDP numbers as reported by the statistical authority (ELSTAT). The major reason is the large "shadow" economy which operates under the...
View ArticleGreek GDP And Credit Expansion - No Money, No Honey
Credit expansion, i.e. easy and cheap access to bank loans, is an essential ingredient of economic growth. But as with all good things, too much of it can lead to trouble.This was certainly the case...
View ArticleDriving Ms. Hellas
Another alternative data set which better follows Greek economic conditions than headline GDP figures.First-time vehicle registrations are up in 2017 for the fourth year in a row, now higher than 2011...
View ArticleGreece: Creditless Expansion
The Greek economy is growing once again, and this time it is doing so without the benefit of credit expansion to drive consumption and investment. For us schooled in chemical engineering, it is like...
View ArticleLeverage In Haste, Collapse At Leisure
"Sin in haste, repent at leisure" goes the well known sobriquet. In the case of Greek businesses and households, they leveraged themselves so fast that the implosion was all but inevitable,...
View ArticleYadda, Yadda, Yadda And A Bottle Of Ouzo
Greece is highly indebted, bad loans swamp banks, the economy is in tatters... yadda, yadda, yadda. Highly conventional wisdom, the one you get from the popular (and even specialist) media, is always...
View ArticleGreece, The IMF's Sugar Daddy
Today, a look at the Greece-IMF relationship from the only perspective that really matters: money.When Greece imploded back in 2010 it turned to the IMF for help. The IMF agreed and as of Oct. 2017...
View ArticleGreece: Various Data
The situation in Greece continues to improve. Latest data: The 5-year CDS (credit default swap) dropped to 292.9, the lowest point since the crisis began.S&P upgraded Greece one notch to B, with...
View ArticleA Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
The World Economic Forum at Davos is in the news these days, as it is every year at this time. The worldâs leaders - political, business and financial - gather to rub shoulders and, very...
View ArticleDisruption
Buffett, Bezos and Dimon announced they are going to massively disrupt US healthcare by designing and implementing an in-house system for their combined 1+ million employees on a not-for-profit basis,...
View ArticleUSA Debt: Is It A Threat?
US federal government debt is now at 106% of GDP, the highest in decades. It got there because it was forced to bail out the financial sector during the 2007-10 Great Meltdown, essentially having the...
View ArticleGreek PMI Near Record
Manufacturing in Greece is staging a strong and rapid comeback. The Purchasing Manager's Index for manufacturing is now at the highest level since 2007. Increasing new orders is the biggest...
View ArticleUSA Margin Debt
Given the stock market plunge of the last few days, the following chart is interesting. It is current to year-end 2017 (latest available), the data comes from FINRA.Given that total market cap at the...
View ArticleYes, Virginia, There IS Volatility
What happened with US stocks? Why did they tank so suddenly after months of steady gains?No, there was no irrational exuberance, no massive leveraging, no pernicious balance sheet shenanigans at...
View ArticleInterest Rates And Savings
One single chart: Ten year Treasury yields and the personal saving rate (ie the percentage of income saved).The correlation is interesting.
View ArticleSteel Duties, Seriously?
Imposing import duties on steel and aluminum is akin to protecting the horse buggy business when Ford set up his car production line... completely useless and meaningless.The US economy is long past...
View ArticleGreek GDP And PMI
Greek 4Q GDP rose 1.9% YOY, the fastest in 10 years. Similarly, manufacturing PMI rose to the highest level on record in February.
View ArticleTrade War Over Steel? Gimme A Break...
So Trump throws up this firecracker about import duties on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%). Itâs a non-issue folks, despite hot air from Brussels about retaliation via Leviâs, Harleys and Jack...
View ArticleChina Has To Grow Up
China has become the worldâs second largest economy based largely on the ability to churn out cheap consumer goods in vast numbers. It could do so because of a) very low wages, b) cheap land and c)...
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