Only 40 european banks have disappeared since the 2008 financial crisis, compared to almost 500 in the United States. The governments have decided to keep their banks alive, and this has caused the healing process to slow down.

Bitcoins : it’s new, it’s in, so to speak, and we keep hearing a lot about this virtual money that was created in 2009 and that is breaking record after record. What should we think about it?

Even if its goals are laudable, a tough regulation always generates perverse effects. Such is the case with Basel III, and it’s a shame, because it’s the solidity of our banks that is concerned.

With the shutdown absurd showdown – temporarily – over, we are now faced with having to re-evaluate the U.S. debt in depth. Is it still a safe, risk-free asset, with the Fed backing it forever with new money? This is an important question.

As we’ve been saying at the time, the spoliation of bank accounts in Cyprus this last March to save their banks was but a general rehearsal. We’ve also learned that there is a european proposal on the table to have depositors of over 100,000 euros contribute should there be a bank bailout in a Euroz...

Although we often read in the press or hear from banking and political leaders that the ECB doesn’t buy back sovereign bonds, contrary to the Fed, thus hinting that « we Europeans are more virtuous than the Americans », it’s totally false.

Let’s take a long look at the Fed’s Quantitative Easing, or QE, that we’ve been talking about regularly, to really appreciate its importance and meaning.

Last Thursday, there was quite a surprise : contrary to what the majority of market participants were anticipating, Ben Bernanke decided not to taper his QE (quantitative easing). Thus, $85B a month is still being created by the Fed to keep buying $45B of federal debt and $40B of mortgage-backed sec...

With the upcoming German national elections, the problems in the Eurozone have been left aside. Angela Merkel doesn’t want to lose some voters by talking about it. Her finance minister slipped, during the campaign, saying that Greece will have to be helped again but, not to worry, with only 10 billi...

The general feeling, or « sentiment », is leaning toward a tapering of money printing by the large Western central banks, due in part to the official statements of the Fed indicating it might taper its quantitative easing (QE). For now, it’s just an hypothesis invoked by its Chairman, Ben Bernanke,...

This drop in the price of gold in the first quarter of this year, though significant, will no doubt seem very soon like a glitch, a short pause. The price of gold really started to go up in 2002 when the Fed implemented its laxist policies and now the central banks are stuck with their printing pres...

Goldman Sachs is above the law. On August 20th, this prestigious business bank is stung with a giant computer bug : their program sends out false orders in great quantities on the american options market and on certain quoted index funds. Which de-stabilizes these markets, and just goes to show how...

According to Morgan Stanley, in the week starting August 14, $760 million have been withdrawn from emerging countries funds, $590 million of which in Asia, for both stock shares and debt obligations. And this is the third consecutive week of withdrawals

There is an idea, the 'Great Rotation', that we hear a lot about since the beginning of the year, a great underlying movement that should be happening in the markets: investors moving from bonds to stocks.

There is no recovery. But, since the mainstream media and the governments keep repeating it over and over again and since we prefer believing good news than bad news, a majority of people believe in this so-called recovery. This is why the stock market is up and gold is down.

« Forward Guidance » is the new « in » phrase with central banks. It is supposed to reassure the market a few years in advance so that it can « anticipate » properly.

Is there still « real » price discovery, today, and in which markets? This manipulation of interest rates by the central bank affects all prices, the same way price controls do in centralized states

The situation is untenable in Japan and can only be contained in the States and the Eurozone if rates go just slightly up.

Investors must remain calm and keep a critical mind permanently. They have to go beyond the big media noise. And now is really not, really not the time to sell one’s gold.

Weirdly enough, the media didn’t dwell on this amazing issue, and the TV people didn’t even talk about it in their news bulletins. Of course, it’s about one of Europe’s most powerful man, Mario Draghi, head of the European central bank.