Saturday, July 16, 2016

Race To The Bottom

"To understand what’s happening in the financial markets, it’s important to recognize the sequential nature of yield-seeking speculation....
With every extension of quantitative easing, the public is left with a lower-quality stock of speculative assets...
Ultimately, all that quantitative easing does is to remove higher-quality interest-bearing securities from public hands, replace them with zero-interest cash, and leave a remaining stock of lower-quality speculative assets that then have to compete with that cash...
"...the global economic outlook has experienced a downward shock in recent weeks, largely as a result of the “Brexit” referendum where British citizens voted to exit the European Union, coupled with deterioration in China that has led it to accelerate the depreciation of its currency. That combined deterioration, coupled with expectations of further central bank easing, has resulted in a plunge in global interest rates...
This advance in asset prices isn’t a reflection of economic health. To the contrary, it is a yield-seeking race to the bottom resulting from a downward shock to the global economy."
--Dr. John Hussman PhD.

Friday, July 15, 2016