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Observations Lab

Non-Linear Views on Financial Markets and the Economy, based on Friedrich Hayek's paper on decentralized knowledge, "The Use of Knowledge in Society".

Dr. Brian Taylor, Chief Economist
Global Financial Data, February 27 2020
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Tony Coniaris, Portfolio Manager
Harris Associates, September 5, 2019
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By Daisuke Ikeda, Toan Phan, and Tim Sablik
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Economic Brief, No. 20-01, January 2020
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Mark Robertson
Aviva Investors,  30 September 2019
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Dr. Brian Taylor
Global Financial Data, Aug 14 2019
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Latest Observations
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There really is serious systemic potential about Credit Suisse.

Another Sunday action by the Fed, this time less about regional US banks instead acknowledging major global (euro)dollar potential dysfunction. Some maybe a lot of that is coming from Switzerland. What the Fed and other central banks are up to and how Credit Suisse fits into the deflationary/inelasticity puzzle.

Jeffrey Snider
Eurodollar University, 20 March 2023

Reminiscences of the ''Keep Calm and Carry On'' slogan

Markets and a British WW2 poster from the Ministry of Information.

InvestmentOffice, March 2023

''... the only thing the Fed hates more than inflation is a banking crisis.''

Quote

Fisher Investments Editorial Staff, As Winter Wanes, Prices Continue to Cool, Inflation is easing even more than headline data suggest.
Fisher Investments, March 14, 2023

The Lost Decade

”2022 was one of the worst years for fixed-income investors in history. Bonds lost money. Stocks lost money. Crypto lost money. Inflation rose to levels not seen since the 1980s. The only thing that increased in value were commodities. You have to go back to the Civil War in the United States or the Napoleonic Wars in Britain to find a worse year for bonds”.

Dr. Brian Taylor, Chief Economist
Global Financial Data, February 22, 2023

The Callan Periodic Table of Investment Returns

Annual Returns for Key Indices Ranked in Order of Performance (2003-2022)

Callan, January 2023

Stock Market Liquidity, Monetary Policy and the Business Cycle

Working Paper

Markus Leippold, University of Zurich; Swiss Finance Institute; Vincent Wolff, University of Zurich - Department of Banking and Finance
Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper No. 22-93, 18 November 2022

Stock pickers’ paradise: market breadth is at a 20+ year high”.

Alexandra Morris, Investment Director
Skagen, 27 January 2023

Which Country Will Outperform? Here’s Why It Shouldn’t Matter.

Investment opportunities exist all around the globe, but the randomness of global stock returns makes it exceedingly difficult to figure out which markets are likely to be outperformers. How should investors deal with this kind of uncertainty?

Dimensional, Perspectives, January 17, 2023

Liminal Spaces in Financial Markets

Liminal spaces are understood as physical locations that are transitional in nature, somewhere between origin and destination. Their aesthetics is associated with feelings of eeriness, apprehension, and nostalgia. Now, what would be its equivalent in financial markets?

Investment Office, January 2023

Long-term Returns to Dutch and Indonesian stocks

The Netherlands has more stock market history than any other country. Trading in shares of the East India Company began trading in Amsterdam in 1601 and continued to trade until the company went bankrupt in 1794.

Dr. Brian Taylor, Chief Economist
Global Financial Data, December 21, 2022

“In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and they happen faster than you thought they could.”

Quote

Rudiger Dornbusch (1942–2002)
German economist, who subsequently moved to the United States, where he obtained his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago

Market chaos as major players call the biggest bluff.

The FOMC met today and hiked rates. More than that, they set course for more to come and policymakers holding those up for a longer period. And the markets completely, totally, utterly rejected the "almighty" Fed. This is why.

Jeffrey Snider
Eurodollar University, 15 December 2022

Les devins, ou, commentaire des principales sortes de devinations :

"distingué en quinze livres, esquels les ruses et impostures de Satan sont descouvertes, solidement refutées, et separées d'avec les sainctes propheties et d'avec les predictions naturelles."

Caspar Peucer
Heudrik Connix, Anvers, 1584

''Twitter is both a social media company and a crime scene''

Quote

Elon Musk
Twitter, 10 December 2022

Banks aren't what you think they are which has become a huge, huge problem.

The world and the US$ in particular has operated on a virtual currency basis for decades. Without realizing it, most people have participated in this radical shift in money therefore banking. If currency is virtual, then what is it that banks actually do? Most people don't know or don't realize what banks really are and the world-altering consequences of this.

Jeffrey Snider
Eurodollar University, 10 December 2022

''Clarity in the stock market is always expensive to buy!''

Quote

Ken Fisher, Founder and Executive Chairman of Fisher Investments
Fisher Investments, Ken Fisher Debunks: “Don’t Buy In Until There is Clarity That You’re in a Bull Market”, 9 December 2022

Ken Fisher Debunks:

“Don’t Buy In Until There is Clarity That You’re in a Bull Market”,

Ken Fisher, Founder and Executive Chairman of Fisher Investments
Fisher Investments, 9 December 2022

“The markets lead the policymakers in the direction the markets believe are the greatest risks, because those risks become reality!”

Quote

Jeff Snider
Eurodollar University, "There is no mistaking these signals; that's the bad news", 8 December 2022

"Diversity is just another word for conformity. It’s the new way of saying conformity, diversity".

Excerpt

Steven Patrick Morrissey, also known as Morrissey, solo artist, and former frontman of The Smiths.
Morrissey Interview, The London Palladium, October 2022

On Paul Volcker’s Policy ‘Moments’:

"I think there was a second Volcker moment that gets less publicity but is also important, and that occurred in the summer and fall of 1982."

Enrique Martínez-García, "Monetary Policy at a Crossroads: Donald Kohn on Controlling Inflation, Ukraine Effects, Volcker-Era Lessons", 
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Dallas Fed Economics, July 05, 2022
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