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☆ Multipolar world opens up surprising safe havens
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

This new-look cap table leaves the U.S. much more vulnerable to the vagaries of foreign investors than before. In a crisis, foreign investors would rush to buy even more U.S. debt. Reuters GraphicsA less orthodox option would be to invest in emerging markets instead. The last time net equity investment in the U.S. NIIP dipped close to negative territory was as the dot-com bubble was deflating in 2001. In the next six years the U.S. saw net equity outflows equivalent to nearly 30% of GDP.

Persons: Hubert Védrine, Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, ’, Donald Trump’s, exceptionalism, NIIP, Peter Thal Larsen, Streisand Neto, Thomas Shum Organizations: Reuters, French, U.S, United, United States, Treasury, Equity, U.S . Treasury, Japan, Democratic, Cooperation Council, Peterson Institute for International, Fed, ECB ”, Thomson Locations: United States, tatters, United, U.S, China, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam, India, Chile, Democratic Republic of, Congo, Washington

☆ Rich countries are stumbling into a debt trap
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-03 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Unlike many corporations and households, the U.S. government did not lock in the low interest rates of the last decade by issuing long-dated debt, preferring instead to skew funding towards bills and short-term bonds. The second route out of the debt trap is to target the primary fiscal surplus, choosing a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes that will stabilise the public debt. That leaves the third route to debt sustainability – keeping real interest rates low. But in the short run, it allows a government to tame the debt ratio without fiscal austerity, and even if growth is sluggish. Governments are indeed stuck in a classic debt trap.

Persons: Joe Biden, Fumio Kishida, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Kacper, Everett Dirksen, you’re, Dirksen’s, Stanley Druckenmiller, Joe Biden’s, Peter Thal Larsen, Thomas Shum Organizations: Japan's, NATO, REUTERS, Reuters, Congressional, Office, International Monetary Fund, U.S, Treasury, Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics, Medicaid, Federal, Bank of Japan, Thomson Locations: Ukraine, Vilnius, Lithuania, Illinois, U.S, Britain

☆ The case for a career in bond investing
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

I sensed familiarity with the recent fate of fixed income benchmarks such as Austria’s hundred-year government bond. For this reason, when bond yields are low, the sensitivity of capital prices to inflation and interest rate shocks is high, and vice versa. The appreciating greenback has been a drag on much of the global fixed income universe for the past decade. The real reason to go into fixed income investing, I explained, is that you get to tell governments what to do. Now that the end of monetary anaesthesia has awoken fixed income from its 15-year coma, I told the MBA students, you’ve got your chance.

Persons: Bonds, That’s, Torsten Slok, GMO’s, Liz Truss, ”, Bill Clinton’s, James Carville, you’ve, Peter Thal Larsen, Streisand Neto, Thomas Shum Organizations: Reuters, Treasury, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Apollo Global Management, U.S ., JPMorgan, Economist, UK, Thomson Locations: U.S, Venezuela

☆ The Queen’s question returns with a vengeance
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-06 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

The world’s leading central banks had spent the previous two decades focusing on low inflation, neglecting risks to financial stability. Central bankers counter correctly that predictive accuracy is not the same as explanatory power. Yet it is far from clear how today’s independent central banks should respond to these overtly political struggles. In 2021, when the Phillips Curve was asleep at the wheel, the growth in the money supply was flashing red. The unfortunate truth is that there are many answers to the Queen’s question this time round – but no single magic solution.

Persons: Elizabeth, Prince Andrew , Duke, York, Prince Philip , Duke of Edinburgh, Tom Nicholson, Queen Elizabeth, Ben Bernanke, don’t, Phillips, Isabella Weber, Guido Lorenzoni, Andrew Bailey, monetarism, Milton Friedman, Anna Schwartz, Winston Churchill, Bernanke, Peter Thal Larsen, Oliver Taslic, Thomas Shum 私, 「 Organizations: Westminster Abbey, REUTERS, Reuters, Bank of England, U.S . Federal, Phillips, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Chicago, MIT, United, 「 Reuters Locations: Westminster, London, Britain, British, Central, Ukraine, Paris, United States

☆ The next revolution in monetary policy is underway
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

LONDON, June 30 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Monetary policy, Milton Friedman said, acts on the economy with long and variable lags. Monetary policy regimes evolve in response to the changing nature of prevailing economic challenges – though this also takes time. The next revolution in monetary policy may be brewing. One question Gopinath did not address is how the financial system came to dominate monetary policy. When contractions hit, however, central banks eased monetary policy and governments loosened their purse strings, just as before.

Persons: Milton Friedman, Gita Gopinath, Gopinath, ’, “, Peter Thal Larsen, Pranav Kiran, Oliver Taslic Organizations: Reuters, International Monetary Fund, Bank for International, IMF, Central, SVB, Signature Bank, Credit Suisse, Fed Funds, BIS, Thomson Locations: Portuguese, Sintra, Korean, United States, Europe, Central, England, London, U.S, China, Ukraine, “

☆ Crypto is dead: long live crypto!
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

The end of near-zero interest rates, quantitative easing and pandemic-era fiscal stimulus has sent prices crashing back to earth. Rising real interest rates have proved to be kryptonite for crypto, as for so many other speculative assets. The normalisation of interest rates may have done for crypto in its most recent incarnation as a get-rich-quick scheme. The proposition that the circulation of private currencies might be economically beneficial has also been around for a while. Nevertheless, history shows that for privately issued currencies to attain critical mass it has typically required more than just the availability of viable alternatives.

Persons: cryptocurrencies, Gary Gensler, noncompliance, Balaji Srinivasan, marc ”, Paul Krugman, Friedrich Hayek’s, Money ”, James Steuart, ”, Crypto, Long, Peter Thal Larsen, Oliver Taslic Organizations: Reuters, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, Coinbase, SEC, State, Brixton, counterparties, Central Bank of, Thomson Locations: Ithaca, Scottish, United States, Central Bank of Argentina

☆ Securonomics is fuzzy new lodestar for investors
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

During the era of free trade and financial liberalisation, the politicians danced to the economists’ tune. President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor explained that the era of unqualified support for free markets is over. The state will explicitly subsidise “specific sectors that are foundational to economic growth (or) strategic from a national security perspective,” Sullivan explained. Internationally, meanwhile, free trade is no longer the pole star. Sullivan’s 5,000-word speech devoted just three sentences to the World Trade Organization.

Persons: Rachel Reeves, Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s, ” Sullivan, Jacob Soll, Jean, Baptiste Colbert, Alexander Hamilton, Adam Smith, securonomics, Colbert, Hamilton, Christine Lagarde, Lagarde, ”, Soll, Peter Thal Larsen, Pranav Kiran Organizations: Reuters, Labour, Bank of England, White, U.S . Treasury, U.S . Trade Representative, Joe Biden’s National, Biden, offshoring, World Trade Organization, Industries, BAE Systems, Dow, Aerospace, Defense, U.S, Treasury, University of Southern, European Central Bank, Soviet, Russia, Thomson Locations: Washington, Tellingly, States, French, Scottish, University of Southern California, China, United States, Europe, Saudi Arabia

☆ Reuters BreakingViews: AI Boom Could Expose Investors' Stupidity
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailReuters BreakingViews: AI Boom Could Expose Investors' StupidityFelix Martin, contributor to Reuters BreakingViews, discusses whether investors are truly missing out if they don't jump on the AI bandwagon.

☆ AI boom could expose investors’ natural stupidity
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Indeed, enthusiasm about AI has become the one ray of light piercing the stock market gloom created by the record-breaking rise in U.S. interest rates. It’s a good moment for investors to be especially alert to the tendency of natural stupidity to drive stock market valuations to unrealistic – and therefore ultimately unprofitable – extremes. However, the most important lessons of behavioural economics relate to a more fundamental question: Will the new generation of AI do what it promises? Behavioural economics offers some cautionary tales for such attempts to apply AI in the wild. For example, stock market returns can be affected by a small number of rare but extreme movements in share prices.

☆ Inflation’s real benefits beat theoretical costs
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Yet economic theory has a remarkably hard time identifying the social costs imposed by a rising price level. A more serious charge is the uncertainty that rising prices introduce into financial planning. If the theoretical costs of inflation are elusive, the potential advantages it has to offer are more concrete. U.S. house prices, meanwhile, peaked last year at a full 45% higher in real terms than when Rogoff made his plea. In the end, the practical benefits of inflation will trump its theoretical costs.

☆ Investors can discount IMF’s emerging-market gloom
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Felix Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Historically, monetary tightening in the United States has been kryptonite for emerging-market investors. Most important of all, many emerging-market central banks learned the lesson of previous cycles and raised rates early. By the end of 2021, two-thirds of the major emerging-market central banks were tightening monetary policy. Perhaps the 2020s will bring a Highly Indebted Rich Countries initiative in which emerging-market countries return the favour. But when it comes to considering the investment case for the majority of emerging-market sovereigns, investors should not be swayed.

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