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With yields at record lows and stocks soaring, is it any wonder that the politicians of Europe's periphery are proclaiming victory over the crisis (and yet oddly imploring Draghi to do moar?). Perhaps, just perhaps, they are keeping one eye on the

Has the next major economic downturn already started? The way that you would answer that question would probably depend on where you live. If you live in New York City, or the suburbs of Washington D.C., or you work for one of the big tech firms in

The European Central Bank is meeting next week in Frankfurt, Germany to talk over and update the world on its monetary policy. The ECB is scheduled to announce its latest monetary policy decision at 7:45 am ET on Thursday June 5. That'll be followed

US equities dipped after the initial ISM data (and construction spending miss) as did USDJPY but soon after things began to levitate in their new normal manner as bad news is clearly pent-up good news in the future. By the time the ISM admitted its

In case you were wondering why US equities are charging higer yet again today on mediocre news (while bonds shrug), we offer another potential reason... Russian stocks are now in bull market territory off the mid-March "sanctions" lows... not exactly

While US equity implied volatility has been flat to slightly higher in the last week (as stocks have soared), FX volatility has remained near record lows... until today. Ahead of Draghi's big day tomorrow, EURUSD implied volatility has spiked from

The amount of money parked with the ECB has fallen dramatically over the past year, and the banks’ reaction to negative deposit rate is still to be seen. So, the impact of setting a negative deposit rate is not necessarily going to be euro negative

With a 9 standard deviation range between the highest and lowest excuse for a forecast from the 81 "qualified" economists on Bloomberg's survey, there is plenty of room for noise to dominate signal with tomorrow's payrolls data. Goldman forecasts a

Taken at face value yesterday’s action by the ECB amounted to a monetary farce. How could any adult believe that a benchmark rate cut of 10 bps from an already microscopic level of 25 bps would move the needle in an economic zone that is already

Even before those nasty inflation figures on Tuesday, negative interest rates in the euro zone were considered a done deal. As the central bank for a region struggling to fight off deflation risks, lackluster growth and weak bank lending, the

In sharp contrast to last week, the punditry has less to chew on this coming week. This leaves the media agenda wide open. Discussion will range freely on the potential for the economy as well as the markets. Expect to see stories about China

It's not a big surprise to see Capital Markets trying to consolidate as we head into a long weekend either side of the Atlantic. Caution ahead of Euro election results is keeping the European markets, particularly equities, in a holding pattern

E-commerce company eBay Inc said hackers stole email addresses, birthdays and other identity information between late February and early March in a data breach that may have affected a "large number" of accounts. In the latest major cyber attack at a

The economy gained 288,000 jobs in April, the most in 2 ½ years, and the unemployment rate plunged to 6.3 percent from 6.7 percent. But the drop occurred because fewer people looked for work. The government doesn't count people as unemployed unless

If there was one chart that shows best what is happening with the bifurcated US housing market, it is this NAR breakdown of sales by pricing bucket. It shows beyond a doubt that courtesy of the Fed's policies there is not one but two housing markets

William Dudley, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, spoke yesterday about the state of the New York, New Jersey, and U.S. economies. The quote you need to know: "There have been significant and long-lasting changes to the nature of work,"

We are confused: on one hand the Fed is injecting hundreds of billions of liquidity into the market, boosting the S&P to all time highs and making the rich richer (Piketty taking Excel lessons from Rogoff notwithstanding) while the economy remains

Germany's national security council declined two-thirds of applications for arms export licenses at its most recent sitting three weeks ago, German news weekly Spiegel said on Saturday. The economy ministry had prevented a license application to

“It is said that only a fool learns from his own mistakes, a wise man from the mistakes of others.” Otto von Bismarck. I am sure you heard the quote above many times and that you understand its meaning, but I want to focus a bit on the first part “…a