Market Overview

IntroductionThe European Central Bank (ECB) just announced a $70 billion per month bond buying plan. And Greece will probably elect an anti-austerity government on Sunday. Neither will do much to...

While the financial market party has been gaining momentum in the U.S., Europe has been busy attending an economic funeral. Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank President is trying to reverse the...

On Tuesday, I explained how and why the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – are in trouble. These four emerging markets, rich in labor and physical resources, used to be on...

I thought President Obama's speech was a good one and actually inspiring at times. My problem with it is that his idealism was divorced from reality. When you are optimistic while ignoring things like...

Prince Michael of Liechtenstein Warns "QE a Sign of Helplessness, Will Not Reach Economy"; Prince Michael vs. Martin WolfI received an interesting email today from Geopolitical Information Service...

Lower Bank of Canada Rate Hammers Loonie. Will we see a “Crack Up Boom”? The price advance for US treasuries has become outstanding; almost as outstanding as the trend for most eurobonds....

The following Year-To-Date percentage gained/lost graphs of World Markets are presented without individual comment. A general observation is that money has begun to flow into non-U.S. markets. I'd...

"Index shows economic growth moderated in December": This is the headline for today's release of the Chicago Fed's National Activity Index, and here are the opening paragraphs from the report: Led by...

The Latest Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for December is now available. The index rose 0.5 percent but November was revised to downward from 0.6 percent to 0.4 percent. The latest...

The Chicago Fed's National Activity Index, which I reported on earlier today, is based on 85 economic indicators drawn from four broad categories of data: Production and Income Employment,...

Today's release of the December Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (discussed here) included benchmark revisions in addition to the routine monthly revisions. Also the base year for the index...

Seven of eight indexes on my world market watch list posted weekly gains, with the three European indexes topping the list, thanks to the ECB's QE. France's CAC 40 was up 5.96%, Germany's DAX rose...

Well the day has finally arrived that after two years of promises, jawboning and hope - the European Central Bank finally announced they will take the plunge into the Quantitative Easing (QE) pool.As...

I should note that I'm a former employee of FXCM (NYSE:FXCM), and thus am influenced by my perception and my knowledge of the executive team. Basically, in spite of the damaged balance sheet and...