Nickolai Hubble

Capital & Conflict – brought to you by Fortune & Freedom Of course they won’t call it that. But the media and the protesters will. And it’ll feel like one. The countdown to our next lockdown has already begun. That’s…

Capital & Conflict – brought to you by Fortune & Freedom Yesterday’s Fortune & Freedom explained how central bankers have managed to avoid acknowledging the side-effects of their misbehaviour for so long. But the trends which kept a lid on…

Capital & Conflict – brought to you by Fortune & Freedom What happens when you mistake a symptom for a disease? Because that’s just what central bankers are doing right now. And their mistake is all that’s keeping stocks afloat….

Capital & Conflict – brought to you by Fortune & Freedom “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future,” explained Yogi Berra. But it’s been a good run for Fortune & Freedom so far. The bitcoin price boomed after…

Capital & Conflict – brought to you by Fortune & Freedom It may well be that lockdowns are a good idea, that nations should theoretically open up after reaching some vaccine threshold, that track and trace will prevent outbreaks according…

Property in Japan is considered a depreciating asset, like a car. When young people inherit property in Japan, it is seen as a burden because of the costs of upkeep or demolition. Arson by the owner to escape tax and insurance fees is a real problem.

The first idea is simple. For a few weeks, markets have been worrying about whether the central banks will taper, meaning they will begin to withdraw their quantitative easing (QE – the creation of money to buy government bonds and other securities) and other forms of loose monetary policy.

Now you might think that we are finally getting somewhere when it comes to this pandemic thing. Perhaps we’re even getting towards the end of it. But I’m not so sure that the vaccines will save us and unlock the global economy.

On Friday, I ask Nigel Farage about whether the mess in Afghanistan would lead to a repeat of Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis. He said something which shocked me about the connection between that crisis and Brexit.

In keeping with what Boaz Shoshan and John Butler spoke about, let’s kick off today’s Fortune & Freedom with a clever point made by a reader about the collapse of the global reserve currency, the US dollar…

If you liked the tech bubble and the housing bubble, you’re going to hate the consumer price inflation bubble.

My daughter, much like the stock market, is at that age when she can’t quite communicate what she wants, but all hell breaks loose if she doesn’t get it.

In fact, inflation is now so bad that the Bank of England and the House of Lords got into a public spat about the central bank policy of quantitative easing (QE – creating money to buy government bonds).

If you believe the market’s prediction is wrong and you know better, well, you can make money on the difference. But only on the difference.

Is the Bank of England addicted to QE? Or did the pot call the kettle black?

The UK’s exports to the EU have surged well above pre-referendum and pre-Brexit averages. What does it mean for UK politics going forward if Project Fear is vanquished?

The claim that cryptocurrencies are connected to fraud is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, says Sam: “The traditional system continues to have lost far, far more to scams and fraud than crypto ever has.” It reminds me of the stories about cash being used for illegal purposes. But more on the banking system’s culpabilities in a second…

In yesterday’s letter, reader J.B. reported on some difficulties he was having with buying more cryptocurrencies. His bank was making life difficult. Today, the tale turns epic.

It’s time to dig into the mailbag today. Your demands for a virtual conference on escaping financial repression have been heard, loud and clear, by the way.

And so, for today, let’s look into the damage done by financial repression in the form of low interest rates, what happened when one reader attempted to buy cryptocurrencies to escape financial repression, and more…

I’ve always known different nations’ news channels report the same news entirely differently. I follow the news from the UK, Germany, Australia and the United States each day. And they’ve offered completely different facts and “science” throughout the pandemic.

House prices around the world are booming in the midst of a pandemic, not to mention despite Brexit. But why? And will it last?

As you’re about to discover, I believe this goes beyond the usual housing bubble. But first, the data…

But consider this. Your definition of the word “risk” and the definition used by the financial industry serving you is completely different. And the gap is the source of rather a lot of anguish, if you ask me.

Your regular editor Boaz Shoshan is otherwise incapacitated today. So it falls to your former editor Nickolai Hubble to offer up some words about our favourite subject, cryptocurrencies gold. The gold price is posed to surge in coming years as…

Ever wonder who founded our newsletter publishing company? Not Southbank Investment Research, but our friends in the US who preceded us. Well, it’s time to meet him. Bill Bonner and his wife, Elizabeth, have spent much of 2020 hunkered down…

“Where the bloody hell are you?” was the slogan in an Australian tourism campaign in 2006. It got banned in the UK… Today, the Aussie tourism industry doesn’t have to wonder any more. The country simply shut down one of…

Kodak has joined the growing list of companies with spiking stock prices and is perhaps the most surprising of all. What these companies share is a good story, not a great business. In this episode, Boaz Shoshan, Kit Winder and…

I was thinking about how it’s a shame we don’t have a new North America to discover. We could send the Royal Navy off to colonise it and then sell it off like John Law did, thereby solving the problem of the national debt. And then it hit me. The world does have such a place…

With Boaz Shoshan otherwise occupied, Southbank’s tech expert Sam Volkering and macro-strategist Nickolai Hubble talked about the news this week. UK GDP plunged by a quarter, before bouncing back less than expected. But what does that really mean? Will gold’s…

Presumably you are older now than you were in the 70s… Well, in today’s podcast, we explore what a return to inflation would mean – whether its effects on your life would differ to the last bout Britain went through….

Your regular editor Boaz Shoshan remains on holiday. And Kit Winder is busy researching the stocks you’ll want to buy in coming months. So it falls to me, Nick Hubble, to carefully avoid talking about Brexit today. Was yesterday the…

Boaz Shoshan is putting the finishing touches on this month’s Zero Hour Alert this morning. So I’m back in the hot seat at Capital & Conflict. But you know what, this morning I really don’t need to give you much…

It’s finally ready… I spent most of last week getting a high-level security pass – submitting my passport to the authorities, getting an endorsement from senior political figures and even passing through airport style security. It was the culmination of…

Let’s do the maths. The total value of non-performing loans in the European Union is valued around €900 billion. Banks have made provisions, meaning set aside money, for about half of that. Leaving about €450 billion in questionable loans. The…

Nick Hubble here. I wasn’t quite finished with you on Monday, so Boaz Shoshan let me elbow back in with more today. Two days ago I showed you how the high priests of Europe’s monetary experiment are abandoning ship. The…

A “suicide pact”. That’s what the famous Australian economist Steve Keen called the euro in a recent interview. And his views are catching on. But not where you’d expect. Back in 2011, Jacques Delors told the Telegraph, “Everyone must examine…

It’s the last day of 2018. I hope it’s been a great year for you personally. Because it wasn’t for financial markets. But there’s no point reliving what made markets tank in 2018. It’s probably still fresh in your mind….

Today is my last day as your editor of Capital & Conflict. I’ve been here since February 2017. Let me know what you think of my scribbles by emailing [email protected]. But don’t worry, I’m not leaving you completely. Just moving…

Have you ever wondered what our office looks like? Today’s Capital & Conflict comes to you from our newly complete recording studio. It was recorded on the day stockmarkets surged on the news Italy would back down in its budget…

My new book officially launches tomorrow. Not that you can’t claim a free copy here now, and start reading today. That’s probably a good idea given how fast my predictions about Italy’s budget battle came true. I’ve revealed a chunk…

I have a confession. The market crash in October wasn’t just about Italy’s budget debacle. It was also about the underlying force which is getting Italy into trouble right now. Here’s how I explain it in Chapter 5 of my…

It’s Thanksgiving in America. But before you can get to the festivities below, I wanted to make you aware of a shocking prediction. What if the market melts up before it melts down? What if stocks go for one last…

Bloomberg pulled no punches this morning: “One of the toughest years for financial markets in half a century got appreciably worse Tuesday, with simmering weakness across assets boiling over to leave investors with virtually nowhere to hide.” The strange thing…

A medical emergency left my keyboard out of reach yesterday. I was unable to write to you on one of the most interesting days in British politics for many months. After six attempts to take a blood sample by nurses…

Let’s start the day with a correction. And not just the stockmarket kind. In Monday’s Capital & Conflict I told you Italy’s Target2 balances had hit a record last month. But they only remained near record levels instead. Thanks to…

They’ve done it again. Italy’s Target2 balances hit -€489.5bn in October. That’s a new record low. Of any country, ever. Including during the European sovereign debt crisis. But very few of us know what it means. In fact, nobody knows…

Welcome back to the semblance of stability. After a terrible October, markets have stabilised. Even the Aussie dollar is doing well. Despite a consensus forecast among investment banks of a 20% decline in Sydney and Melbourne house prices. No worries,…

Do your remember Donald Trump’s upset win over Hillary Clinton? Of course you do. But do you remember the financial market fallout? Business Insider laid it out nicely at the time: US stock futures are plunging as well. As of…

I read a history of the Bank of England (BoE) last year. It wasn’t very exciting. Even when armed guards took up positions to protect the bank from riots and during the war, not much happened. But one thing did…

The world’s stockmarkets lost eight trillion US dollars in value in October according to Bloomberg. By that measure, it’s the worst month since 2008. Change in value of global stocks by month Source: Bloomberg October wiped out almost all of…

Jokes about there not being an EU to exit from next year are making the rounds in the papers. My book about exactly how this will happen hit the printworks last night. You can get a copy here. But today…

For all the talk of ending austerity, you might think there was any in the first place. But I can’t see any budget surpluses on any charts. Government debt to GDP flatlined for three years around 88%, it didn’t really…

My time off is over and I’ve finally made it into the UK, for good. Thank god you’re still here too. Because Bloody October was only just the beginning. As I warned about in August, October would be the beginning…

Yesterday, Nick O’Connor took you through my predictions about Italy that have come true. I called them “crisis triggers”. And so far, they’ve proven accurate. Two more clicked into place overnight. Which means the potential for a market crash is…

The financial news looks like my Netflix account after watching the wrong movie. The recommended viewing section has been invaded by zombies, bombs and vigilantes. The Bank of International Settlements is warning about “The rise of zombie firms”, which are…

Feedback loops are very important for survival. But what happens when they’re misleading? Or deliberately misinterpreted? Suddenly, the gullible emotion of self-preservation becomes downright dangerous to your health. Quicksand is the best example. It looks like sand, feels like mud,…

Before we get to the Labour Party’s attempt to ruin Britain, overnight news confirmed yesterday’s Capital & Conflict. But in an interesting way. Finance Minister Giovanni Tria didn’t just bow to Lega and Five Star demands. He bowed out of…

It’s Giovanni Tria’s 70th birthday tomorrow. His political career might not last that long though. The Italian government budget proposal is due by midnight tonight. Sort of. The finance minister must submit finance and growth targets. As the Bank of…

On Monday we looked at the future of the UK and EU. Yesterday, my thoughts turned into front page news. Prime Minister Theresa May threatened the EU with its worst fear. Turning the UK into a low-tax and business-friendly environment…

The more power they get, the less popular they’ll be. That’s the inherent tension underlying the EU. But why is it true? When you can only choose one policy for all of Europe, then that policy will fit badly somewhere….

In their desperate scramble to find something to negotiate about, the EU and UK governments are turning to ever more ridiculous topics. The latest artificial disagreement is about deadlines. First Prime Minister Theresa May refused to extend the March Brexit…

You might notice you’re not mentioned in the headline. Which is the point of today’s Capital & Conflict. Policymakers and business decision-makers care about your vote and your money, not your interests. And, for some reason, most people are more…

It’s all so familiar. If I was you, I’d be thoroughly furious. Maggie seems to be absolutely fuming too. Let’s play a game so I can show you what I mean. Round 1. You have to guess which of the…

Back in May, the reality of Italy’s election struck home in bond markets. The two-year Italian government bond suddenly plunged. And Europe’s banks followed soon after. Each announcement about who would feature in the Italian cabinet either sent markets reeling,…

If the government set the price of coffee or coal, you’d know what to expect. A mess. There’d be shortages and surpluses, quality problems, questionable business practices in the industry, and suspicious links between politicians and big business. But even…

What do the US Open umpire Carlos Ramos, Australian Greens Senator Adam Bandt, and Brexit voters have in common? They might have plenty in common, as far as I know. But I’m going to write about the odd abuse they’re…

There is hope for Brexit yet. And I’m not talking about Tony Blair’s comment to delay it. Although that is still my preferred outcome. Continuing Brexit negotiations after the May 2019 European elections would make things very interesting. French President…

Do you remember when ratings agencies ruled financial markets? A 2010 BBC opinion piece started with, “Is there any more powerful and feared institution in Europe (or the world) than Standard & Poors?” Yikes. Today I explain why I think…

Nationalism or imperialism? Take your pick. These days, empires are called unions, but they’re much the same. The idea of ruling over areas greater than nation states remains. Sure, under an empire you might still have the semblance of nation…

You’ve lived through the tech bubble. And the housing bubble. So what’s next? Put it like this and the answer is obvious. There’s only one major asset class left. And its prices are near historic highs. The next bubble is…

Last year, the world looked set for a return to war in Korea. For the first half of this year, the narrative suddenly changed. But now the peace process is looking more like a short-lived peace performance instead. Today we…

The EU’s disintegration continues this week. The headlines don’t seem to change much. Unless you pay careful attention to where they’re leading. If you float above Europe and see Brexit as just another domino pushing at the EU’s foundations, you’ll…

Earlier this month I took you through the graveyard of Europe’s many monetary unions. We only had time for the old ones though. The eurozone system failed many times before it even began properly. The currency snake and the European…

If you haven’t been reading Capital & Conflict for long, add some sugar to your coffee before you read it today. Or something stronger. The newspapers are building their own Project Fear over a no-deal Brexit. You might call it…

Do you remember Domino Day? That painfully iconic European event where students from across Europe tried to set records for how many dominos they could set up and knock over? Well, it’s back. Only this time, it’s emerging markets that…

“The Italian Horrorclown”. That’s what Germany’s mainstream Der Spiegel newspaper called Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini late last week. The picture to go along with the story wasn’t flattering either. Meanwhile, Der Spiegel also found a Greek economist willing…

Recessions happen. Financial crises happen. Markets crash. Currencies collapse. The odd thing, given how often it happens, is that people still don’t expect it. Are you expecting some sort of crash in coming years? A recession perhaps? This week’s The…

Since the Brexit negotiations began, I couldn’t work out why they were so acrimonious. Free trade is mutually beneficial. Restricting it is mutually harmful. What is there left to argue about? The answer comes from British intelligence. At least that’s…

Turkey’s crisis is nothing to worry about. Because if it wasn’t Turkey, it’d be someone else. What should worry you is the timing of the Turkish crisis. The world has barely embarked on quantitative tightening or interest rate increases. And…

My attempt to move to London continues today. We’re currently thwarted by a disappearing visa agent and a steady stream of stabbings in the news. But the marriage certificate is making its way through the Japanese bureaucracy. My surname has…

Sovereign debt, corporate debt, margin lending, household debt, mortgage debt, consumer finance debt, student loan debt, and so on and so forth. Do you ever need to repay any of it? There are interest-only mortgages. Equity release can fund your…

Yesterday we avoided the Boris Burka furore to talk about the mechanics of the Soviet Union’s internal trade settlement mechanism. Which is important because it explains how the eurozone will fail economically in the same way. Monetary unions may destroy…

Acting Man’s blogger Pater Tenebrarum summarised the eurozone’s Target2 system with words that doom the euro: “TARGET-2 is a settlement system without a settlement mechanism.” Understand this sentence is the key that unlocks the death of the euro. And the…

Who runs the EU? It’s a simple question. But the answer is far from obvious. I’d bet a survey would throw up a thousand different answers. Only a few months ago, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel were going to reshape…

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to start a currency union in Europe. That’s the key message from today’s Capital & Conflict. It’s not a particularly stark revelation. You’ve been watching the eurozone fail since before it existed….

Brexit is heating up, fast. The military is involved in preparations for a hard Brexit. The Troubles are set for a comeback in Ireland. Export and import reliant businesses are cutting back investment. Border security and infrastructure is being readied….

Plenty has happened since we examined the bizarre trade war developments yesterday. Donald Trump’s meeting with the EU’s Jean-Claude Junker can be summarised with this Bloomberg quote: Trump said he hoped for a “very positive” outcome from meeting with Juncker…

Before we begin, there’s something urgent I need to alert you to. It’s regarding the incident that took place at our London Bridge office last week, and how it’s allowed us to offer a best ever deal on our most…

Today, I will show you a crafty scheme to make German taxpayers pay for your French cheese and wine. It’s called a hard Brexit. Which is now looking more likely. Another week, another Brexit deal falls by the wayside. You…

Yesterday, we explored the issue of immigration – the elephant in the room that is Europe. What bothers me about immigration is not really the first or second order effects. Because I’m naïve. I grew up going to international schools….

What if the most decisive issue of our time is also the most divisive? The one you’re not allowed to talk about. The one that’ll get you into trouble, just for mentioning it. Plenty of organisations manage to avoid uncomfortable…

The political world is delivering a steady stream of chaos this week. And it’s only Tuesday. Keep in mind, financial markets obsess over politics. And for good reason of late. With central banks poised to prevent any sort of rout,…

The surprising thing about financial crises is that they come as a surprise. The stockmarket and the bond market are supposed to be forecasting mechanisms. They “discount” the future, meaning they figure out how much something is worth by estimating…

Brexit is roiling markets. The pound dumped, jumped and dumped again as ministers resigned. Is a soft Brexit more likely than ever? Is a hard Brexit on the cards now? Which of the two is good for Britain and bad…

My research into Britain’s future continues here in Japan. And I’ve reached a very simple conclusion to guide your financial decision-making going forward: don’t give money to moochers. That’s the consensus view from those who know what it’s like to…

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron are in trouble. The politics of tolerance and charisma are not working. What if Europe’s leaders fall? One after the other? Could financial markets stomach political uncertainty now? I’m not just talking about political storms…

Tomorrow, it begins for real. The trade war gets hot. Donald Trump’s tariffs come into effect. $34 billion in Chinese goods will be subject to 25% tariffs. But if you ask the man himself, the trade war began many years…

It doesn’t matter who you are, debt will solve your problem. If you’re a company CEO whose job and pay packet are all about raising the share price, the answer to your challenge is simple – debt. You just need…

Clearly the European Central Bank president Mario Draghi hasn’t read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Because he’s behaving like the Wizard himself. We know it’s just you hiding behind the curtain, Mario… And it’s only a matter of time before…

You might think the US trade war is about the US. But it isn’t. It’s about the US’ ability to affect other nations. The real question is how much clout the global superpower has. Is it enough to get its…

With Australia and Germany out, your editor’s interest in the World Cup has halved. But Japan and England play tonight. Yesterday, in anticipation of the game, I bought beer made by the Bank of Japan (BoJ). At a shopping centre…

What sort of policies will be passed under the cover of Brexit? My worry is that you can twist the referendum any way you like and claim a mandate for whatever you want. As long as you include the word…

If you’re utterly mystified by the last few years of economic and political events, we’ve devised a narrative for you. Central banks have crushed volatility. Financial markets are now stable. The problem is, financial markets are just a reflection of…

You wouldn’t expect a government actuary report to be terrifying. But let me tell you, the “Government Actuary’s Quinquennial Review of the National Insurance Fund as at April 2015” report definitely is. First, notice its rather optimistic assumptions. It modelled…

With so much political action in Italy, the White House, Germany and Brexit Britain, we’ve been neglecting the global financial markets. Against the dollar, the pound is down almost 8% from its peak in January after a 17% rally that…

Earthquakes are especially disconcerting when you’re sitting on the toilet. Perhaps that’s why they make them so comfortable here in Japan. Before I’d emerged from the bathroom, the various family members across the country had already checked in with each…

The World Cup has begun. You’ll find yourself utterly mystified by my coverage over the next few weeks. As a German by birth, Brit by citizenship, Australian by choice and Japanese by something called a “family register”, I have decent…

I’m having a tough time trying to persuade the Japanese future in-laws to let their first-born move to London. Relations between Japan and our capital city have been strained since former mayor Boris Johnson flattened a ten-year-old Japanese child trying…

Can you imagine if Barack Obama had delivered the Korean peace talks that Donald Trump just did? The world would be swamped with a flood of praise from around the globe. But Trump only gets derision. For his methods and…

In the end, the Italians gave it away themselves. Not the World Cup, their capital flight. Deposits are fleeing the country. The European Central Bank (ECB) might not be releasing its Target2 balances for another few weeks. But the Bank…

In 2016 I joined the Free Market Road Show. We travelled around Europe giving speeches about things like the EU and the sharing economy. The troupe mostly visited eastern European countries, where the battle of ideologies is still distinct. In…

Which currency would you hold over the next year? You only get three choices: the euro, the Italian lira or bitcoin. Which do you choose? You’ll find out my pick below. Trying to stay more than one step ahead of…

Italy’s financial crisis didn’t return with a bang on Friday as I expected. And Italy’s Target2 liabilities didn’t spike in April either. They more or less held steady: Italy Target2 balances Source: European Central Bank (ECB) Italian bonds staged a…

This Brexit thing is a real debacle so far according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. Especially compared to the continent. UK incomes are rising faster than inflation. The highest proportion of Britons are employed since…

“Italy could be out of the EU before Britain,” writes Jeremy Warner at the Telegraph. I wish I came up with that line. Instead, I’m rather worried the Italian and EU crisis will do the precise opposite. Brexit will be…

The dark side’s henchman has revealed himself. We still don’t know who is pulling the strings behind the scenes. But Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella is doing her dirty work with an emphatic “Nein!” of his own. This weekend, President Mattarella…

It’s a bank holiday today. If you’re on the way to work, we hope your train was cancelled in time. They don’t cancel trains here in Japan. When I say that the trains run on time, you have no idea…

Gold is the world’s most polarising asset. People either love it or hate it. You’ll be denigrated a gold bug for owning it, or an ignorant moron for not. There are good reasons for this division. Gold’s position is an…

This Capital & Conflict will attempt to persuade you that America is a poor, bankrupt nation without hope or promise. And you should do something about it. I’m still trying to persuade myself, because what I’ve found is rather shocking to…

“Gleich funkt es,” my German family always said as their final warning. It roughly translates to, “Any moment now, sparks are gonna fly.” Youngins on the receiving end of that comment got their act together real quick. Have you noticed…

It turns out that investing is really very simple… in a way. Howard Wang of Convoy Investments explains that investment prices are driven by the amount of money and the amount of assets. Asset price = quantity of money/supply of…

This article is an update on a pre-referendum article from Dominic Frisby. To read the original, click here. The EU referendum has come and gone, and Article 50 has been triggered. But Brexit is far from over. Some still don’t…

My mum lives in front of the Wilder Kaiser. It’s a pretty mountain in Austria. The top half is a shiny face of bare rock which glows in the afternoon sun. You can climb up and over through the Ellmau…

The EU’s pride is the latest casualty of Donald Trump’s trade war. But it’s not the only recent victim. The push for “fair trade” is causing all sorts of problems in every corner of the world. The worst seem unrelated…

Do you really own something if it’s controlled by the government? Property rights are a precondition for prosperity. The idea is that you own yourself, your property and the fruits of your labour. This basic concept is fairly new in…

The lira is coming back. After two months of silence from Italy’s coalition negotiations, it’s all happening too fast. Remember, politics is Italy’s only way out of the euro. That currency and its monetary policy has kept one of the…

Politicians and central bankers love to talk down their currency. It’s an age-old policy – part of mercantilism. A cheaper currency makes your exports more competitive internationally. And your imports more expensive, encouraging the consumption of local goods. Both favour…

Were you surprised to see North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in shake hands over the Korean border? Then you didn’t read Capital & Conflict on 23 November 2017. In fact, I’ve been predicting the reunification of Korea…

If you think you’ll get a chance to relax this public holiday, you’re wrong. It’s all happening. Did you hear about the Swedish crisis? Or the one in Argentina? Perhaps that the Canadian and Australian housing bubble burst? Financial crises…

It’s called “good news or bad news”. I’m going to reveal news to you. And you have to guess whether it’s good or bad. The point being that you’re guessing. I don’t know the answer either. So don’t try too…

At the last minute, Donald Trump rescued his allies from his own trade war. He extended the exemption from steel and aluminium tariffs for another 30 days. But it wasn’t enough to prevent US steel stocks from sliding about 5%….

Today is the day. By the time you read this, the temporary exemption to Donald Trump’s tariffs will expire. Much of the world will be subject to steel and aluminium tariffs when exporting to the US. Ironically enough, it’s also…

Capital & Conflict offers you a simple piece of advice: opt out of the blunder from Down Under. As the news furore over the immigration debacle reaches fever pitch in the UK, let’s take a look at the nation which…

The Trump bonanza continues across the world. Profits are up on Wall Street. Earnings season is wildly exceeding expectations for companies like Amazon. Founder Jeff Bezos saw his wealth surge $12 billion in a day. Facebook shares were up 10%…

If you know something is going to happen in the future, when do you react to it? More importantly for the purpose of making money in financial markets, when is everyone else going to react? Because that’s when prices move….

For months it’s been all about 3%. Investment analysts, traders, managers and commentators all agreed: if the ten-year US Treasury bond hits 3%, something is going to snap. Well, according to Bloomberg radio, yesterday was the big day. For the…

Today we imagine a return to a normal world. Or at least try to. Because it wouldn’t last long. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein gave an interview on CNBC after his company announced its earnings for the first quarter of…

A bad case of Russian hysteria is breaking out across the Western world again. It’s all too familiar for anyone with an interest in history. But there are some modern twists. Imagine this headline at the height of McCarthyism: “Facebook…

Blowing up some portion of Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure changes everything. Or nothing, depending on who you ask. Don’t ask me. All I know is that we’re walking into whatever was planned for us. If Bashar al-Assad actually launched a…

Given World War III might’ve started by the time you read this, I’ve got to be careful what I say. Especially with a UK partner visa application in the works. And so, let’s take a look at the premise of…

That escalated quickly. 2017 was marked with extraordinary low volatility for the US stockmarket. But so far, 2018 is shaping up to be the opposite. Instead of record amounts of days without a move greater than 1% in either direction,…

Let’s delve deep into the future of the US dollar. That’s another way of saying we’re talking about everything at once. Because the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency, the currency of the biggest economy, the currency of international trade…

It’s bad news all round. Not that anyone can agree on what’s good or bad news these days. And even if we could, there’s no agreement on whether good or bad news makes the market go up or down. Perhaps,…

Everyone agrees. The biggest risk to the markets is obvious. Central bankers are swapping quantitative easing (QE) for quantitative tightening (QT). And QT could make the world blow up in all sorts of ways. Citibank credit strategist Matt King told…

Donald Trump has replaced central bankers when it comes to financial market news. Instead of trying to second guess what the money printers will do next, we await Trump’s tweetstorms. And there’s been plenty of action lately. But first, consider…

We hope you had a happy Easter. The US financial markets didn’t. They were open yesterday. And it wasn’t a pretty sight. The worst opening day for the second quarter since the Great Depression led the S&P 500 below its…

American markets were down again overnight. But only marginally so. The few stocks that led the market up are now taking it back down again. A series of scandals are behind their drops. But how can a select few companies…

Stocks went back to their falling ways once more overnight. It seems the occasional respite is just a so-called “dead cat bounce”. The problem with a bear market now is that it begins with the FTSE index at the level…

We should’ve hired Donald Trump to negotiate Brexit. His advice would’ve been clear. Trigger Article 50 and tell Europe we’re leaving. And then threaten it with a whole new set of trade barriers under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. Its…

Getting into a sports stadium is always easier than getting out. Unless you leave early. The stockmarket is much the same. Up the escalator and down the elevator is the mantra describing the nature of the stockmarket’s booms and busts….

Australia didn’t even have a recession in 2008 or 2009. China’s enormous stimulus programme and a wave of immigration saw to that. It was a demonstration of the power of countercyclicality. As long as some parts of the world are…

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering why the financial industry doesn’t learn from its mistakes, today’s Capital & Conflict is for you. Financial crises are bizarrely common given how painful they can be. Bankers seem to learn slower than toddlers…

Blockchain is the technology that makes bitcoin function. But bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are only one application for blockchain technology. In fact, they might not be the most important one. Right now, the Australian Securities Exchange is preparing to convert…

Britain has agreed on a transition deal with the EU. But the EU’s negotiator reminded us that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”. So have we agreed on a transition deal or not? The agreement on the transition deal…

Cryptocurrencies are marketed as an anti-government and anti-establishment alternative. But can they survive a government and establishment onslaught? Because they’re getting one. Facebook, Google and potentially Twitter will ban cryptocurrency advertising on their platforms. That includes advertising of related products….

I’ve argued for years that Britain should draw out the Brexit process as long as possible. Every week, the EU weakens. Every week, warnings about Brexit fade. But this week has me wondering if I was wrong. There seems to…

Reading a publication called The Interest Rate Observer might sound awfully boring. But right now, it’s interesting. And that’s not a good thing. Take for example this simple factoid. Telecom Italia’s bond, which expires in 2022 and carries low credit…

The UK’s property boom is sputtering and stuttering. You should be very worried about what happens next. House prices fell nationally in the last three months reported Halifax. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) house price index hit zero…

Ever found yourself with a Scottish banknote south of the border? Or a Northern Irish one on the wrong side of the water? Britain still has ten note-issuing banks. These are banks who issue their own pound banknotes. They look…

In 2016, the Obama administration imposed duties on Chinese steel of more than 500%. Yesterday the EU extended its anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel of between 48.3% and 71.9% depending on the company. Of the EU’s 53 steel anti-trade measures,…

I had no idea how obviously bad the euro is. If you take a look at history, you realise the path to the common currency is littered with consistent failures. And after each warning, the Europeans pushed ahead with their…

My resignation from Capital & Conflict is pending. It hinges on the Brexit negotiations. And the suitability of property for sale in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Perhaps you can help. I’m looking for a pair of properties – one either…

It’s going to be a miserable ten years for US stocks. That’s what Michael Lebowitz CFA claims on realinvestmentadvice.com. And he’s got plenty of data and analysis to back him up. Of course, the world’s stockmarkets take their lead from…

Trainspotting provides today’s economic analysis. The movie is about a drug addict’s attempts to come clean. It doesn’t go so well. Perhaps because he’s trying to do it in Scotland. In the end, he steals thousands of pounds from his…

The Currency Wars are over. Having tripled the monetary base as a per cent of GDP, the world’s major central banks are now winding up. No more quantitative easing. No more attempts to devalue the dollar, euro or yen. This…

Who knew? If you’re faced with a zombie apocalypse in coming years, the solution is simple. Just set up some interest rate trip wires around your home. Or nail a certified copy of your adjustable-rate mortgage balance to your door….

The absurdities of Brexit roll on. Boris Johnson supposedly told Germans that Brexit is a mess. No doubt everyone can agree some aspect of the process is a shambles. So why the controversy? Brexit negotiator David Davis found himself reassuring…

What if you’d treated your children exactly the same? No matter what crisis of confidence or overconfidence they faced, you encouraged them. No matter their academic abilities, you sent them all off to by nuclear physicists or sculptors. No matter…

Negotiations between the British government and the EU are hotting up. The new question is how many agreements they need to establish a trade agreement. If they can’t agree on this, there won’t be an agreement. Do you need an…

So far, Europe’s election season isn’t a complete disaster. But that could all change on 4 March. Because the Italian election could be the only election that matters. Italy’s financial situation is in tatters. The banking system has a bad…

Last year, Capital & Conflict sent you an inflation alert. Yes, ten months is a bit of an early warning. But there’s some vindication playing out at last. Inflation has gone from being persistently low to persistently high in the…

Sometimes things are simple. Perhaps this is one of those times. Stocks are crashing, bonds are stumbling, and investors are worrying. When will it stop? Last week we tried to take stock of what happened so far. And how it…

The US stockmarket turned down again last night. That’s always a bad sign in the aftermath of a crash. Stocks are supposed to bounce back for the same reason they crashed – mean reversion. Of course, they did bounce back…

Well, that escalated quickly. The biggest one-day drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, in terms of points not per cent, was all over the news this morning. The drop wiped out the impressive gains for 2018 so far. And…

Italy’s Target2 liabilities hit a new record in August. Then again in September, and November. And again in December. Each time, it made the news. And each time most people who read the headline had no clue what it meant….

Do you remember when a 1% drop in the stockmarket was nothing to get excited about? When 2.7% was a cheap interest rate for governments to borrow at? When a forecasted central bank interest rate below 2% would cause inflation?…

Two stockmarket crashes in ten years utterly crushed the hopes of British investors. It’s taken the FTSE 100 17 years to reach new highs since the tech wreck of 2000. Not since the Great Depression has the power of crashes…

A few days ago, I covered the scandal emerging from the halls of Washington. One reader called the article “outlandish mental gymnastics and conspiracy theories”. Since then, plenty has happened. You won’t find anything about it in the British media…

Charlie Morris of The Fleet Street Letter bought a glass of wine in Chamonix with bitcoin. It’s not a terribly remarkable event to you and me. But this one event might enlighten us about the future price performance of bitcoin…

Last night it hit me. With bitcoin well over the $12,000 mark thanks to his foreign policy, you have to wonder how much bitcoin President Donald Trump owns. There’s little question the awesome power of the US president includes the…

It took me a month to open a bank account in the UK thanks to terror-related financial regulation. In the end I opened a very basic account, got the branch to print the bank statement, walked out of the bank…

Today’s Capital & Conflict is longer than usual. And it’s about the US political system. That might seem irrelevant to you. But I think it’s important. A scandal is being kept from you. It exposes the true nature of government….

The Bayeux Tapestry is coming to Britain. All 70 metres of it. So when can you go and see the embroidered cloth to discover the history of the Norman conquest of England? No, not next week. Not even next month….

I’m a huge fan of Donald Trump. His career in reality TV continues to go from strength to strength. To be honest, I don’t know if that’s entirely true. I’ve never watched his TV shows. Not even Miss Universe. And…

I’m sick of reading it. The number of indicators “at levels not seen since 2007” is piling up fast. Some are all-time records. While others are “at levels not seen since 2000.” Just about all the measures signal we’re in…

You probably own shares in a mining company or oil producer. But have you thought about investing in commodities themselves? Few people do. It used to be the realm of major institutional investors or billionaires trying to corner the silver…

Last week it was China. This week it’s inflation. The US’ bond market is all over the place. Today we look at what’s got bond traders’ knickers in a twist. And if you’re a bond vigilante, how to take advantage…

Well, yesterday’s Capital & Conflict proved timely. A bear market in bonds is the top story right across the financial media this morning. The Financial Times, Bloomberg and others all feature stories about wobbly bond markets and jittery yields. Yesterday…

Yesterday we looked into stocks. But they’re a sideshow. The financial world really runs on debt. Bonds are the main event. Bond markets are twice the size of stockmarkets. The survival of governments, giant corporates and pensions funds depends on…

The stockmarket is a cyclical thing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down. That’s supposed to make the whole thing predictable, in a way. If you’re at the top of the cycle, sell. If you’re at the bottom, buy….

The Bank of Japan has done it! It’s shrunk its balance sheet. Without triggering mass financial panic. Drawing money out of the economy tightens financial conditions in Japan. That’s not what central banks are supposed to be doing when inflation…

We interrupt your coverage of Brexit, bitcoin and central banking to cover something far more important. According to The Sun, experts are concerned chocolate will run out in the next 30 years. Climate change will make it too hot to…

The editorial team here at Southbank Investment Research wishes you a happy new year. But will it be? I don’t even know if my last one was or not. When it comes to being happy, the events in your personal…

You don’t read much about commodities these days. But underneath the calm, plenty has been going on. In fact, global energy markets are about to be turned on their head in all sorts of surprising ways. In the US, the…

The Tech Wreck is a pretty cool name for a stockmarket wipeout. Sub-prime Crisis sounds snazzy too. But nothing beats the coming crisis. It’ll be known as the Recession of the Zombie Apocalypse. Now I don’t know much about zombies…

Today bitcoin and the financial sector combined their superpowers. Will it be for good or evil? The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launched bitcoin futures overnight. The immediate result was a bitcoin futures price of $20,000 for February, far higher than…

My friend Tim Price is out with a warning. He’s spotted what he calls “the Third Crossing”. Don’t worry, it’s nothing morbid or religious. Unless you’re praying for your retirement. The last two crossings triggered the most memorable stockmarket crashes…

One of the longer running themes of newsletter writing is to stand up for the downtrodden. The meek and weak. The people who newspapers and politicians don’t take sides with. It’s gotten us into plenty of trouble in the past….

Well, that worked. But has it really? I’m not so sure. The mainstream financial world has elbowed in on the bitcoin bonanza. Cboe Global Markets launched bitcoin futures on Sunday. After two days of trading, it seems to be a…

The war is over, but the battle has only just begun. That’s the summary of Prime Minister Theresa May’s agreement with the EU. We now know how much we’ll pay the EU… well, approximately how much. What’s a few billion…

The EU seems hell-bent on vindicating Britain’s departure. Just consider the selection of the new president of the Eurogroup. The list of finance minister candidates put forward to replace Jeroen Dijsselbloem is hilarious. You had Spain’s Luis de Guindos, because…

Reading the latest news about Brexit makes me feel sick. The whole debate is entirely absurd. The problems are artificial. The political posturing self-serving. A thousand political problems and structures have created a thousand more, none of which need exist…

I wish Donald Trump hadn’t been elected. He’d make a great Brexit negotiator if he was available for hire. There’d be a “deal” for sure. And the whole process would be even more entertaining. But instead he’s in charge of…

Bitcoin’s price looks and smells like a bubble. But the media’s takedown attempt is turning ridiculous. Here are three headlines from the Financial Times’ homepage this morning: Bitcoin: a poxy currency Bitcoin: an investment mania for the fake news era…

With the British people finally united over Brexit, one profession has argued otherwise. The discrepancy could cause Prime Minister Theresa May’s downfall. But it also reveals two ways to profit. One for a 20% return per year. Sorry to be…

Yesterday ended with more unsolicited bitcoin commentary. It seems restaurants have become bitcoin forums. A young man sitting near us suggested criminals are using bitcoin to pay for transactions within prisons. His dad had returned from some sort of research…

I’m grumpy this morning, after reading this on Reuters: “Regulators know the rewards of cryptocurrency and blockchain could be huge but (they) have more than one eye on the catastrophic ramifications if good governance, stability and control are not preserved.”…

It’s above $9,700 now. The fact that you know what I’m talking about tells you a lot about the bitcoin mania. What other assets can you recognise by price alone? With every surge, the cries of “bubble” grow louder. And…

After harping on about the power of cash these last few days, your editor was caught short of any when it mattered most. Phone lines, internet and therefore payment systems are down across the Nullarbor Desert in South Australia. You…

Do you remember the retirement of Alan Greenspan? Probably not, everyone seems to want to forget about what happened after 2006. The monetary maestro had presided over an extraordinary period of stability, calm and growth. They called it the Great…

If you’re wondering what sway Jamaica has over Germany, you’ve missed one of the funniest coalition battles ever. Germany’s election almost a month ago left no clear majority. The rise of the Alternative für Deutschland party tipped the balance away…

Six trillion dollars’ worth of rare earth metals sit untouched in Korea. It’s enough to break China’s stranglehold on the market. Plunging rare earth metal prices could trigger revolutions in battery technology. And make your consumer electronics vastly cheaper. Battery-powered…

You’ve read about the War on Cash here in Capital & Conflict for years now. Not to mention in Tim Price’s book of the same name, which you should have a copy of by now. It explains “How to survive…

The butterfly effect explains how a fluttering of little wings can trigger a hurricane on the other side of the world. Central bankers have been fluttering their little fingertips over the “0” key, generating trillions in digital money. Today, we…

There hasn’t been much about bitcoin in Capital & Conflict of late. Our friends at Exponential Investor are the experts. You can sign up for free, just like Capital & Conflict. The cryptocurrency certainly is in the mainstream media nowadays….

  It’s probably not a nuclear warhead inside an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), nor World War 3 that you have to worry about. Although both are frighteningly possible, as you’ll discover below. Even though war in Korea is far more…

There are two ways to muck up Brexit. The first is to fail to leave the EU at all. Or to fail to leave to an extent that allows Britain to distance itself from the EU on key issues. Not…

Your regular Friday editor Boaz Shoshan is busy finalising a series of reports. Word is, you’re going to need them to evade a coming government crackdown. Hence the rush. But that’s all he’s giving away. Today, we take a look…

The Paradise Papers have exposed a bundle of liars and cheats. Namely, the politicians who wrote the tax rules that make using offshore tax havens legal. And not just because their own pension fund makes use of those loopholes. The…

A new high for the stockmarket. Huzzah! Which one? Lots of them! The FTSE 100 hit an all-time high yesterday. The French and German indices last week. The Nasdaq broke an all-time record with 63 all-time highs this calendar year…

It’s an irony of the financial world. The bigger the event, the less anyone cares. Because everyone sees it coming in advance. Everything had already adjusted, the moves were priced in months ago, and all eyes are on the next…

I’ve lost my faith in money printing for today’s Capital & Conflict. It’s always a good idea to ask yourself, “What if I’m wrong?”. Especially when you’ve got Southbank Investment Research’s best and brightest giving you funny looks for temporarily…

It must’ve been lonely back in 2006. Warning about the housing bubble back then got you laughed at. Or worse. By the time I showed up on the scene at Southbank Investment Research’s Australian sister in 2010, sceptics had a…

We have a horror story for you. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether it’s fact or fiction: Will there be war in Korea? It’s a trick question, really. In the spirit of Halloween, I suppose. Britain is technically still at…

A few years ago, a group of my friends and I had the clever idea to update the lyrics to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire. Adding three decades’ worth of events in song form didn’t go so well….

Time is ticking away for a Brexit deal. If the next hurdle of the negotiations isn’t completed by December, then vaulting the remaining hurdles by March 2019 will be too difficult. Bloomberg summarised: At a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday,…

If you haven’t got your name down for Sam Volkering’s free cryptocurrency webinar tonight at 6pm, you need to do it now. If you want to know how people are more than tripling their money on cyptos in a matter…

Imagine playing the TV show Deal or No Deal with your entire family. Not in the stands, giving you “advice”, but there on stage with you. You all have to make the choices together. For most families, it’d be a…

Another day, another symbolic record high for a stockmarket. Yesterday it was the Dax at 13,000. Today the Dow at 23,000. One commentator complained on Twitter that he’d only just received his shipment of a “Dow 22,000” hat. Somebody else…

Amazing what a bit of monetary policy can do to Germans. Their stockmarket index geknackt 13,000, as they say in Germany. It’s the same verb used when you’re gleefully cracking nuts at Christmas. It implies a scrumptious morsel is inside….

Every few weeks I rant and rave about how the government can’t count. Endless examples of failed statistics gathering cross the news. But pundits don’t join the dots to their conclusion – generalised meaninglessness. It’s impossible to have an informed…

In September I warned inflation is making a comeback. It’s central bankers’ age-old accountability mechanism. The reason quantitative easing (QE) never worked in the end. It’s not like we haven’t tried money printing. History is littered with examples of it….

Sitting at a red light, I saw a throng of Catalans huddled around a phone. They had flags on their backs. And they gave a cheer as the bus took off. Their leader had declared independence. Sort of. The independence…

Few bank scandals are surprising these days. Over the last few years we’ve discovered the banksters manipulated just about every financial asset price possible. Some even went to jail! A few years ago, a friend worked on the internal investigations…

Politicians are odd creatures. They have a unique perception of time. Any failures are the responsibility of the previous fellow. Any success is their own to claim. When their tenure ends, they disappear like a thief into the night to…

The idea that all of economics comes down to land prices seems like an arcane one. Especially with the online world increasingly dominating the bricks and mortar of retail. But it isn’t. Land is special. It’s different to the other…

The American government is close to hitting its debt ceiling. And getting the budget approved by congress is set to be a struggle too. Both of these could lead to trouble. Perhaps even default. The American Treasury secretary is already…

Have you ever had a remarkable run of luck? How did it make you feel? Did you begin to doubt the upcoming series of gambles would go your way too? Or were you convinced of your new psychic powers? On…

Last night, crowds wandered the streets banging on pots and pans outside our window. Yesterday was even more of a surprise. It felt like a political rally from 1930s Germany. With a bunch of bewildered tourists thrown in. Flyers rained…

Finishing my book and reading the news, I couldn’t tell the difference between them. Many have commented on the similarities between the Soviet Union and the European Union in the past. But it’s rather frightening when you consider them in…

Yesterday we finished Capital & Conflict by describing how badly discredited the anti-immigration justification for Brexit is. The figures and the economic justification are simply wrong. But the real reason to favour Brexit is plastered all over the news this…

What a pickle. If Brexit is a success, it will bolster anti-EU sentiment across Europe. If Brexit is sabotaged by the EU, it will expose the EU’s nature… and bolster anti-EU sentiment across Europe and elsewhere. The EU must feel…

A few weeks ago, I warned about a black swan for UK investors. Bloomberg is on to the story too now, so it’s no longer a surprise package: A survey by [UBS] of 907 Australians who took out a mortgage…

The hurricanes came just in time for the Federal Reserve. Its policy committee faced the challenge of tightening monetary policy in coming months as promised. But chair Janet Yellen may have escaped by the skin of her teeth once more….

Today is the day Brexit reaches our Parliament. The first pieces of Brexit’s legislation hit the agenda. The spectacle promises to be entertaining. As always, the British political system has created an ambiguous and contradictory situation which makes a Brit…

In 1992, while the pound was tumbling, the Swedish central bank raised interest rates to 500% to prevent facing the same fate. “Want to make a grown nerd cry? Run that interest rate through his risk model,” wrote Eric Peters,…

Soaring house prices are creating a generational gap. Mortgage lender Halifax is the latest one out with data on the topic. “If you are under 35, it’s likely there is little chance of you ever owning your own home,” summarised…

It’s a sign of the times. Provident Financial and Royal Mail were kicked out of the FTSE 100 index yesterday. The Royal Mail blamed its slump on Brexit. A lack of confidence is reducing direct mail advertising. Nothing to do…

Posting on social media is keeping the politicians too busy to reform anything these days. It’s not just Donald Trump on Twitter though. EU pollies are avid twits too. Politics seems to have become an ideological drug dealer. People need…

Yesterday we pondered the beginning of the end of central bank control… over everything. Stockmarkets, corporate bond markets, house prices, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mortgage lending and mortgage buying, bank regulation, but most of all government bonds, are in the hands…

The central bankers are at it again. This time by doing nothing. Which still does a lot if you’re a central banker. The world’s money printers and their academic minions met in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last week. The rest of…

The immigration figures are based on relatively small-scale passenger surveys at airports, […] I’m sorry, but WTF. The Telegraph reports Britain’s official government immigration statistics are based on relatively small-scale passenger surveys at airports. Small-scale passenger surveys at airports… Surveys…

Akhil Patel is the odd one out here at Southbank Investment Research. He uses a completely different way of looking at the markets. But if he’s right, then his way of thinking is all you need as an investor. It…

I may have found your black swan. The distant market shock that triggers a local crisis thanks to the long line of dominos reaching around the world and leading to your door. More below. But first, what did some of…

Next week the world’s central bankers head to Jackson Hole for the annual Economic Policy Symposium. And the financial world is fretting over their words more than ever in anticipation of what might be said at the event. Mario Draghi’s…

What a glorious day. It has happened at last. Health and safety’s overzealousness has struck Parliament where it hurts – right in the bong. Big Ben’s bong, to be precise. According to various accounts of an enormous parliamentary furore, nobody…

Be careful in the bitcoin market. The price has recovered from the fork, and the implementation of SegWit is progressing well too. We’re well over US$3,000, the previous peak before a major correction. But three of bitcoin’s biggest markets are…

The EU goes about sabotaging itself as expected. Last week I explained how the EU’s proposed new rules on bank runs would cause bank runs: The EU is considering new rules to prevent a bank run in the wake of…

A bizarre version of democracy drives modern geopolitics. The number of nations supporting an international policy determines its legitimacy instead of morality or any legal basis. As a result, invasions, sanctions and economic agreements are pursued based on the support…

What makes a nation go from being incredibly rich to incredibly poor? The London Investment Alert’s Tim Price is out with a warning for Britain. He’s predicting we’re in for a new national crisis. One that you need to be…

Fear is pulsing through the markets. Analyst after analyst at investment banks around the world are pointing out that only central bank money printing has kept the stockmarket afloat. And central bank money printing is set to decline in 2018….

Economics, and life, is about trade-offs. You have to choose the best possible option from a selection of alternatives. Analysing just one of those alternatives and declaring it good or bad does not in any way make it the right…

Central bankers were supposed to manipulate the economy for your benefit. But they’ve become the economy itself. The Swiss central bank has amassed more than £550 billion in stocks, bonds and cash. That’s slightly more than the country’s annual GDP….

What sort of Britain do you want to live in? We probably can’t even agree on the features of the Britain we actually do live in. According to President Donald Trump, we don’t even live in Britain at all: “you…

Of my graduating year, all hoped for banking jobs. Only two got them. 2009 was a rough year to apply for internships, let alone jobs. Those who did get internships weren’t so sure about wanting to work at a bank…

The deadline is tomorrow. All eyes are on bitcoin and the outcome of its divorce. Just like any divorce, it’s impossible to make sense of unless you follow the story from the very beginning. But nobody can remember the details…

Smuggling is probably the most honourable profession around. Risking jail time for your customers is quite a service! Second only to people smuggling – risking your own freedom for the freedom of others. Unfortunately neither smuggling nor people smuggling has…

Watching government policies fail is a favourite hobby of mine. The history of economics can’t help but be an illustration on the shortcomings of government for anyone willing to listen. Quantitative easing was supposed to restart inflation so that the…

It’s a banknote. Couldn’t be much simpler or more taken for granted. You’ve probably never really spared the time to think about what it really is. You just use them without a second thought. And always have. But all around…

It’s rare for a government insider to offer insight into the future. But many can’t keep quiet once they leave government. That’s why big financial firms hire them in an instant. Their connections and ability to predict the government’s future…

Predicting the future has been easy in hindsight. We’re very closely following the script left by Japan, although in fast forward. So we had hindsight right in front of our noses, in a way. The Western world’s tech bubble, housing…

Is the cryptocurrency rout over? Things looked dire for a while there. The bitcoin price tumbled over a third from over $3,000 to below $2,000. Then a three-day $400 rally followed. With that sort of volatility you can’t really call…

Most things you can learn from economics are wrong. Figuring out why they’re wrong has plenty of value though. It allows you to predict things that others don’t see. The neutrality of money is a great example. Most people who’ve…

Something broke this morning. Bonds, stocks and commodities all fell. Government bond yields around the world surged. Australia in particular got kicked in the shins all round with a jump in bond yields and a big drop in stocks. Why…

How many note issuing banks does Britain have? It sounds odd. The Bank of England issues our pounds and De La Rue in Basingstoke prints them. So the answer is of course “one”. Why then do Clydesdale Bank, Bank of…

There are two types of governments in this world. Those who can print money and those who can’t. The distinction will define your investing success. It already has, actually. Stock markets in countries with a printing press are doing just…

The markets’ central bank fetish is getting out of hand. The money manipulators were out in force yesterday. Their words moved markets all around the world. Nothing else seems to matter these days, so let’s delve into what’s going on….

The fixers are back. They promise us stability, wealth and safety. Will you buy in? Times have changed, though. Strongmen now come in the form of Janet Yellen, chairperson of the Federal Reserve. And they literally want you to buy…

Gold is a small but crucial part of the portfolio of the modern day investor. It always has been. But the financial industry has slowly tried to sway the British public against the precious metal. It’s obvious why financial advisors and…

The Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) explains how central bankers engineer the booms and busts they’re supposed to prevent or mitigate. Ever since the theory was first derided by the German historical school economists, it was picked up by investors…

Predicting the next crisis is easy. It’ll happen when the central bankers want it to happen. This isn’t some sort of conspiratorial claim. It’s straightforward economics. Investment bank Goldman Sachs took a look at the trigger for recessions in the…

Which is it? The luck of the Irish, or Murphy’s Law? Today’s Capital & Conflict has an Irish theme. Looking at Japan’s past helped us understand China yesterday. So why is Ireland’s past important to you today? If you live…

Gold gets all the attention. But that means there’s an opportunity to invest in gold’s smaller brother, silver. Especially right now, as I’ll show you in a moment. But why invest in silver in the first place? It has many…

Yesterday was Brexit day. Today is Asian domination day. You can either feel threatened and try to ignore the Asian century, or you can see the opportunity to make money from it. There’s nothing like a bit of greed to…

It’s Brexit negotiation day today. David Davis, the exiting the European Union secretary and potential prime minister in waiting, is meeting the European Union’s chief negotiator Michel “Barmy” Barnier in Brussels. Barmy Barnier had previously warned that missing the first…

The bitcoin price crashed… sort of. From above US$3,000 to below $2,500 is hardly a hiccup given bitcoin’s past volatility. But for those who invested very recently or a long time ago, it’s a big loss. And that’s the trouble…

Politics is a zero-sum game. Or worse. You can redistribute wealth and you can get in the way of people creating it. But you can’t create wealth using the law. Only productivity improves GDP per capita. And laws restrict productivity….

More than 300% gains in less than three months is nothing to laugh at. But is bitcoin in a bubble? The exponentially soaring price chart certainly suggests it is. Just when $2,000 still seemed remarkable, the bitcoin price topped $3,000….

It’s all about debt. We spend on our credit cards, even when there’s enough money in the bank. Business finances inventories with credit and equipment with loans. Houses are purchased with mortgages and cars with car loans. Education with education…

Well, what do you make of that? A hung parliament and nobody is quite sure why, how or what really happened. One thing’s for sure. The pound wasn’t happy, falling 2.5%: Source: Yahoo Finance It’s difficult to make sense of…

Gold can be a very useful way to diversify your portfolio. It’s relatively rare, and its value often doesn’t move in line with other assets such as equities or property. At Capital & Conflict, we’ve said that gold provides insurance…

Many people are intimidated by the idea of buying physical gold as an investment. But it isn’t any different to buying jewellery or diamonds. You simply go to a shop and purchase it. Just like jewellery, there are more reputable…

Bitcoin’s run continues today. There’s a rumour that China will accept bitcoin alongside Japan. That would see the currency really go bananas. There’s nothing like a bit of China/Japan rivalry to get things going. If you think you’ve missed out…

Germans have a reputation. But financially they’re supposed to be quite boring. The question is, which side will win out when it comes to eurobondage? Eurobondage is a type of debt slavery. By tying your own sovereign debt to someone…

A few days ago our tech expert Sam Volkering and I had an email exchange about bitcoin. Sam is a friend going back about six years. I rely on him for help understanding what’s going on in the technology world,…

North Korea fired another missile at the weekend. Kim Jong Un was happy with the result. As he should have been because he “guided” the launch personally according to the North Korean media. The Japanese I’m staying with couldn’t care…

With her local policies causing nothing but problems for Prime Minister Theresa May, she’s turned attention back to Brexit to bolster support. But now her opposition has sanctioned Brexit too. Jeremy Corbyn promises to get a deal with the EU….

If neighbourhood cats keep fighting, then putting them in a bag seems like a bad idea. Unless you’re an EU politician. They want to keep pulling the strings even tighter. Europe’s various countries all have a history of wars. They…

On behalf of the Southbank Investment Research team, we hope you and your family are well in the aftermath of events in Manchester. If there is any relevant analysis about terrorism to come, it’s not yet an appropriate time. There…

Can you make money from geography? What about politics? How do demographics affect financial markets? This guide will show you how geopolitics create investment trends and profit opportunities. They’re predictable, convenient to invest in and far more interesting than any…

What if half the world’s oil doesn’t exist? It’s a simple question that sounds downright absurd. But it isn’t absurd at all. In 2011 WikiLeaks revealed a series of cables between American diplomats in Saudi Arabia and their government. In…

Last week Chinese president Xi Jinping toted his updated Silk Road plans to the world. Thanks to a new age of international Chinese infrastructure investment, trade across Africa, Asia and Europe will flourish. Ports, airports and rail links will be…

Predicting the Japanese bond market will crash is known as the Widowmaker trade. If you take a look at the fundamentals, the conclusion is obvious. A bond market crash in Japan has to happen. But it should’ve happened a very…

Konnichi wa from Japan. I’m here looking into Japan’s demographic disaster. And trying to solve it by meeting the potential in-laws. Japan is 20 years ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to demographics. Which puts the…

We were supposed to run out of oil eventually. They called it peak oil. But it will never happen now. At least not how you expected. Can you imagine the early Stone Age humans worrying about running out of stones…

Central bankers are tasked with making our economy run smoothly. But what if central bank policies are the cause of economic problems, not the solution to them? Britain used to have the National Coal Board, the British Gas Corporation, and…

With the swish of his pen, Bank of England governor Mark Carney can make your mortgage cheaper or more expensive. He can change how much it costs the UK government to borrow money too. And the interest rate on savings…

What’s going on in China? The commodity-guzzling engine and goods-producing factory of the world is sending some odd signals. Without Chinese growth the FTSE 100’s commodity producers would be in trouble, the oil price would fall even further and Britain’s…

The papers have new French president Emmanuel Macron down as a europhile. Apparently he’s going to be a tough negotiator when it comes to Brexit. I explained yesterday why he’s more likely to encourage a deal than cause problems. But…

  News from France is not good. The end of April featured two nights of frost in Bordeaux. Cognac, Bergerac and other regions took a hit too. The French Bordeaux Wine Syndicate released the devastating news. The economic hit could…

The secret to walking on a tightwire is looking where you’re going. Not at your feet and the plunge either side of the cable! At the fixed point you’re hoping to make it to. Preferably without a chunk of your…

I promised you an explanation of where the cult of central banking leads us. But that’ll have to wait. The Brexit battle is hardening up. Everyone involved is puffing their chest and making tough statements they’ll later have to walk…

It’s been five long years. But the American central bank can finally claim victory. After five years of undershooting, it’s hit its inflation target at last. America’s year-over-year PCE deflator hit 2.1% in February. That’s impressively close to its 2%…

Today’s Capital & Conflict continues the theme of stockmarket crashes. They’ve been banned. Someone should put up a sign on the corner of Threadneedle Street and Princes Street – “Stockmarket crashes prohibited, by order of the Bank of England”. Over…

The world’s stockmarkets reached an all-time high yesterday. Based on the MSCI All Country World Index, we’re above 2007’s peak. Whoop-dee-doo! It’s a bit embarrassing to have only just surpassed the peak from ten years ago. Stockmarkets are supposed to…

Today’s Capital & Conflict is about the biggest change to the world economy in ten years. It’s happening slowly. But it will be the sea change that sets the scene for the next ten years of investing. The government doesn’t…

The election of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women was a surprise. Probably even a coup given the daily reality for many Saudi women. The French election wasn’t very surprising though. Neither of the…

Both Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale reversed their bets on the pound in the wake of the election news. They now think the pound is on the way up. That’s bad news for the FTSE 100 and its companies with…

Theresa May wants an election in June. So we’re going back to the polls once more. In true EU style, the rejection of the EU in the referendum wasn’t clear enough. Please vote again… It might seem like this time…

Enough politics. Even if politicians and central bankers are driving stockmarkets and property markets these days, it’s time to take a look at how the financial world is faring in its own right. The FTSE 100 is trading above its…

Brexit is done for. A parliamentary inquiry confirmed it on 31 March. A few hours later and the story would’ve read like an April Fools joke. I’m still not completely sure it isn’t. Here’s the totally surreal reason Brexit won’t…

Now that the prime minister has sent in her notice to leave the EU, attention turns to the negotiations. Not just because they’re going to determine whether Brexit is a success. They’re also an opportunity to make money. Every sneeze…

She’s only gone and done it. The prime minister’s letter notifying the EU of the UK’s intention to leave is in the mail. Well, she couldn’t trust Royal Mail with something so important. And so the letter will be delivered…

Is tomorrow independence day? Theresa May’s declaration of Article 50 is widely expected. Here’s the relevant clause in all its glory: 1. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light…

The world’s oldest profession is under threat from robots. Sex workers in Barcelona’s red light district complained about the evils of competition from plastic mechanised fiends. And the complaints supposedly led to the local e-brothel leaving Barcelona’s red light district…

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel “Barmie” Barnier, wants the UK to pay around €60 billion to the EU as part of a Brexit deal. That’s around six times our average net annual contribution from 2011 to 2015. Former justice minister…

Last week I revealed US President Donald Trump’s secret to always winning an argument. Today we’ll have a look at his latest scandal and whether he’s pulled it off again. But first, what about his budget and the tumbling stockmarket…

Yesterday we looked into how tightening monetary policy is just stimulus in disguise. Even if central banks raise interest rates, as they did in the US recently, they’re still spiking the economic punch bowl. We’re practically a bunch of drunks!…

The Federal Reserve moved interest rates up 0.25% last week. The US stockmarket jumped. Market commentators are mystified by the paradox. But it’s not hard to explain. Or to invest accordingly. Today you’ll discover when a hawk is really a…

“President Donald Trump” remains a surreal phrase to write. But that doesn’t change the fact that his remarkable run seems to be long lasting. Today you’ll discover the secret to his success. Trump proved an absolute genius at getting elected….

Today’s Capital & Conflict is issuing an all-out alert. The inflation spectre is back. But not in the UK. Somewhere far worse – Europe. In fact, I’m predicting this is the beginning of the end of Europe. At the heart…

It’s the beginning of a busy week. The Dutch elections are tomorrow. And both the Bank of England and Federal Reserve are due to announce their updated manipulation of interest rates on Wednesday. President Donald Trump is expected to send…

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has released the budget. If you or I balanced our books as badly as he does, we’d be in deep trouble. But governments make the rules. And everybody just focuses on whether things are…

On 2 March something important happened. But nobody knows exactly why it’s important. Today we’ll try and figure it out together. But don’t get your hopes up. The answers are elusive. Last Thursday the price of bitcoin jumped 3%. The…

Last week you learned about Michel “Barmie” Barnier. He’s Europe’s lead negotiator for Brexit. The idea is to get to know the people behind the negotiations. They’re the key to understanding just what will happen. So what about your own…