Category Archives: investing

The Significance of Gold’s Record $2,000 Price

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August 24, 2020 — The price of gold reached an all-time record high of $2,000 per ounce this month.  Mainstream economic thinking has treated gold as a side-show since the world went off the gold standard. Nevertheless, the recent spiking in the price signals some important trends. It is not merely “sound and fury signifying nothing,” as sometimes seems true of financial markets.

There are three ready explanations for the historic increase in the price of gold: (i) monetary policy, (ii) risk, and (iii) a spreading desire for an alternative to the dollar as a safe haven.  Each of these explanations contains some truth. read more

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Six right predictions in 2018

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December 30, 2018 –– I realize that compiling a list of one’s own past forecasts is self-indulgent.  But perhaps there are readers who will indulge me too, as I run through six predictions that – it seems to me – were mostly proven right this past year.

  • Volatility, as measured by the VIX, had been too low and would rise.
  • The stock market was too high and would fall.
  • Trump would switch from attacking the Fed for low interest rates, as he had during 2010-2016, to attacking it for raising interest rates.
  • Prices of oil, minerals, and other commodities would fall.
  • The December 2017 tax cuts would raise the US budget deficit and national debt (contrary to partisan predictions that they would pay for themselves);
  • and in turn would raise the trade and current account deficits (contrary to Trump’s trade promises). In other words, the twin deficits would return.  They have.
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    China’s Q3 GDP Reportedly Slowed to 6.5%. Or is it 6.4%?

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    October 19, 2018 —  Headlines today note a further slowdown in China’s growth.

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