by John E. Charalambakis | Jan 25, 2018 | Commentaries
At the beginning of 2017, it cost $1.06 (USD) to buy one euro. As of today, $1.235 is needed to buy the same euro. Does that reflect US economic weakness or just EU strength? How about the greenback against the British pound? In early 2017 it cost $1.24 to buy the...
by John E. Charalambakis | Jan 10, 2018 | Commentaries
As a starting point, let’s briefly review a few of the forces that are shaping up equities in a positive trajectory during at least the first few months of 2018. Growth has been picking up pace globally – the much celebrated synchronized recovery – and...
by John E. Charalambakis | Dec 28, 2017 | Commentaries
I boarded my end-of-year flight from Cincinnati to Paris, excited of whom I would meet this year, and as I was boarding I heard a deep voice stating: “You have posed the wrong question, provided the wrong argument, and therefore reached an irrelevant conclusion....
by John E. Charalambakis | Dec 11, 2017 | Commentaries
In the last few days, we had three pretty interesting developments related to the banking sector around the globe: EU developments, Basel 3, and an IMF report regarding China’s banks. In the EU, important steps were taken preparing for a Banking Union that will close...
by John E. Charalambakis | Nov 30, 2017 | Commentaries
The recent data on M3 (a broader definition of money supply that includes money market funds and large time deposits) show that its growth has been 6.5% (year-on-year) and actually stands at a three-year high (see graph below). How could that be explained and how...