Norway

But Not There Yet...

Seconds ago, someone accidentally (we hope) pulled a Janet Yellen as the following just came across the wires

FOMC MINUTES: MEMB 'GENERALLY AGREED' MORE INFO NEEDED TO HIKE
FOMC MINUTES: NO TIP TOWARDS SEPT LIFTOFF, DOESN'T RULE IT OUT

But the bottom line is that the Fed just admitted things are going from bad to worse: "The risks to the forecast for real GDP and inflation were seen as tilted to the downside." The question now is what comes first: QE4 or the first rate hike in nearly a decade.

The nation’s largest privately held company, Cargill, has agreed to purchase Norwegian-based EWOS, one of the world's largest suppliers of feed and nutrition for farmed fish. The $1.5 billion deal signals Cargill’s entry into salmon and trout markets and is the company’s second aquaculture deal in the past two months after it announced a $30 million shrimp feed facility project in Equador with Naturisa. 

A look at next week's data in the somewhat larger context, and a look at interest rate differentials

To help remind readers of what happens when the entire world engages in wholesale currency war, here is a complete list of all the recent FX interventions, courtesy of Stone McCarthy.

In "historic step," Norway may be forced to tap into its $875 billion sovereign wealth fund to help make ends meet in the face of persistently low crude prices.

Here is an overview of next week's events and data placed in the larger context.  

Coal powered electricity is currently by far the cheapest and one of the most reliable forms of electricity generation known to Man. To suggest that replacing this with intermittent wind and solar or carbon capture generation will somehow reduce American’s electricity bills is either delusional or plain stupid. Or is the intention to deliberately deceive?

The demise of the dollar has been greatly exaggerated.  Here is how I see the near-term outlook. 

Russia is resubmitting its claim of more than 460,000 square miles of the Arctic, including the North Pole, as its sovereign territory, saying it has enough evidence to convince the United Nations that its claim is valid. The Arctic, which is believed to contain as much as one-quarter of Earth’s undiscovered oil and gas, is part of a territorial dispute involving not only Russia but also Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States. This is the second time Moscow has submitted a claim in the Arctic.

The quest for perfection is man’s unattainable goal. Man can never be perfect if we are to believe the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Man is man’s wolf and all of that.

The Central Planners who thought that buying shares to prop up the stock bubble was an excellent fix are about to find out the true meaning of toil and trouble.

How hard do you work compared to the rest of the world?

Even as Greek banks, severely depleted of cash and eligible collateral they can post with the ECB, stand to fight another day (and potentially face more withdrawals as soon as the Greek banks reopen supposedly on Monday) thanks to another €900 million liquidity infusion, investors in Greek bank shares will be less lucky: "to ensure a new bailout, investors in the country’s banks faced the prospect of their holdings being "wiped out" under the terms of a €25 billion recapitalization plan."

‘Plan B’ Needed As Euro One Recession Away From Implosion - David McWilliams