"Japanification" in the economic sense refers to the stagnation that Japan's economy has faced over the past three decades, and is typically applied in reference to the concern among economists that other developed countries will follow along the same path. As a visual, here's Japan's long-term nominal GDP in US dollar terms: Chart … [Read more...]

Published December 2, 2020 Since autumn of 2019, I've been bearish on the dollar, meaning I have a longish-term outlook towards a weaker dollar. This view began forming when the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in summer 2019, and then the view solidified with a catalyst after an overnight repo rate spike in September 2019 forced the Fed to … [Read more...]

Lately, it has become fashionable to debate what is, or is not, "money-printing" by central banks. This debate is natural, due to the extreme policy nature of 2020, with massive fiscal expenditures, huge increases in central bank balance sheets, and changes in central bank inflation targets. It's important to know what is inflationary, and what … [Read more...]

During election season, a big portion of financial media news coverage shifts to presidential election outcomes. These election seasons tend to be good for media ratings and clicks, but to what extent do they matter for investors? Does accurately predicting the result of a presidential election generate outperformance? Can we say a lot about the … [Read more...]

There has been a lot of discussion lately about how effective monetary policy can be. In my view, the big debate between fiscal policy and monetary policy, or inflation vs deflation, mostly comes down to looking at a long enough historical timeline to see the full context. The effectiveness of monetary policy, including interest rate … [Read more...]