Author: benbam

While odds of a deal in Algiers are virtually nil, keep an eye on oil vol: with a barrage of “headlines” (mostly from anonymous Reuters “sources”) imminent, the only guarantee move is that oil will move dramatically higher and lower in the next three days.

Angela Merkel said, “Europe is not at all in a good state.” And Europe is famous for waiting until the last second to actually address crises. The danger is that threats are flowing from so many holes that plugging up the leak at the last moment may take more fingers than the Little Dutch Boy of myth has.

He adds that “no doubt” that Yellen will say at her press conference that Fed expects to tighten over time; yet hard for Fed to be “overly hawkish” since September statement will need to explain why policy makers aren’t hiking this week. FOMC may decide statement should remain neutral, leave it to Yellen to deliver “close but not quite there yet” message. Looking at the […]

The Eurozone’s banking system, incorporating the national central banks and the ECB, bound together in a bizarre settlement system called TARGET, became the means for member nations to buy German goods on credit. Very good for Germany, you may say, but the problem was that the credit was supplied by Germany herself. It is the same as lending money to the buyer of your business […]

“The Chinese economy is definitely on the downward trend. That hasn’t changed,” said Ma Xiaoping, an economist with HSBC. Ma said demand from both home and abroad is still weak and investors are downbeat about China’s economic outlook.

Iraq is OPEC’s second biggest producer after Saudi Arabia, and the increase in its output, alongside that of Iran, could aggravate the global oil glut and complicate discussions between OPEC and non-OPEC producers on output limits to prop up prices.

Last month’s strong jobs growth should reinforce the Fed’s confidence in a labor market that officials view as at or near full employment. Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said the economy needs to create just under 100,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth. The U.S. central bank raised interest rates for the first rise in nearly a decade last December, but since […]