Archive - Feb 2014

Three times more Americans gave up on America in 2013 than in 2012. As The WSJ reports, last year saw a record number of US taxpayer expatriations. While "exceptionalism" and living the American Dream remain cornerstones of maintaining the US citizenry's view of the world, it seems everything from tax-code changes to spying drove 2,999 people to hand in their passports last year, "above all, fear seems to be driving this increase."

We previously examined 240 years of US market history for a sense of 'trend' or sustainability but some were not satisfied. In order to get a truly long-term perspective, we reach back 1000 years to The Middle Ages and look at how stock prices, interest rates, commodity prices, and gold have changed in a millennia (and most notably how the key historical events have shaped those price changes).

The Likeness of God is to Create not Consume.  Ingenuity and innovation are hallmarks of our human creativity. Curiously, those marvelous characteristics unique to mankind, which have delivered the most astoundingly advanced technological productivity gains ever conceived, are now fast displacing a multitude of relatively menial jobs previously attended to by human beings, who having been anchored to unsatisfying and unfulfilling laborious routines, were less able to enjoy the free time and space certainly required to become more creative enlightened beings themselves.

Gloomy commentary on the world's ageing population appears overdone. We look at key silver linings and the significant investment opportunities ahead.

This wasn't supposed to happen. At a time when the European Union, reeling from the ongoing near collapse of the Eurozone, has been preaching its key benefits - the removal of borders and the free transit of labor - moments ago Switzerland, with a tiny majority of 50.4%, voted in favor of new immigration curbs which requires the government to set an upper limit for foreigners, risking a backlash from the (utterly toothless) European Union.

In recent months, the attention of the public has been consumed by concerns over private data abuse by such public spy agencies as the NSA, as well as what personal financial information may have been intercepted by rogue hacker black hats who in the past two months have been blamed for millions in credit card privacy breaches. However, so far there have been two major loose ends in the story of personal data collection (and abuse): just how web search browsers and cookie-based advertising companies collect everything there is to know about the particular interests and desires of any given individual, and just as importantly, how banks abuse client confidentiality by taking the secret financial data of their clients less than seriously. Today, one of these loose ends got some much needed public exposure.

Although there are no policy making meetings, central banks will still dominate the agenda in the week ahead.  

Better watch out, bitcoin!

Iranian warships dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean will travel close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time, a senior Iranian naval commander said Saturday. The fleet, consisting of a destroyer and a helicopter-carrying supply ship, began its voyage last month from the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas. The ships, carrying some 30 navy academy cadets for training along with their regular crews, are on a three-month mission. Reuters reports, citing Admiral Haddad, that "Iran's military fleet is approaching the United States' maritime borders, and this move has a message."

Just too too busy...

So what happened to the unemployment rate that it dropped so fast it surprised and embarrassed even the "venerable" Federal Reserve, which had initially expected a 6.5% unemployment rate some time in 2015. To get the answer we go back in time to the last (and only previous) time when the US unemployment rate dropped from roughly 10%, which was in June 1983, to 6.6%, which took place three and half years later, in December 1986 - let's call it the "Reagan Recovery" in short.

The United States has been quite vocal about its “pivot to Asia,” but as Washington seeks to further its influence in the Asia-Pacific, China has been quietly upping its own importance to Central and Latin America. Now China is making a push to further its engagement with countries in the Western Hemisphere, as evidenced by the announcement of a new dialogue mechanism with CELAC.

It may not be as sleek and intimidating as Robocop (or Skynet's Terminator) but California-based Knightscope's recently unveiled line of K5 robots will “predict and prevent crime with an innovative combination of hardware, software and social engagement.” While everyone from Jamba Juice to McDonalds is looking at robotizing their workforce away from minimum-wage-hike-demanding, bathroom-break-needing, healthcare-expecting, sleep-requiring humans, it seems everyone from your local mall cop to replacing police in neighborhood watch is now under threat as the automation of the American workforce moves from science fiction to science fact.

Sometimes, perhaps all too often; investors, traders, economists, and mainstream media anchors miss the forest and see only the trees (growing to the sky or crashing to the floor). To provide some context on the markets, we present the first of three posts of long-term chart series (and by long-term we mean more than a few decades of well-chosen trends) - stock, bond, gold, commodity, and US Dollar prices for the last 240 years...

Ever feel like it's all just one big con?