The Failure of Politics: Merkel’s Euro Debacle?
It may be the great magic trick of the management consulting world: No matter how complex the situation and how iffy the outcomes may appear to be, just draw a two-by-two box for your client. Define what options to write on the x and y axes – and then the client can...
Weekly Market Update
Market Action Some poor earnings reports from a handful of notable companies and weaker than expected economic data kept equity markets in check for much of the week. With the poor data in hand Treasury yields fell giving a boost to the dividend rich Utilities and...
Monthly Barometer’s Forward-Looking Monthly Review: An Interdisciplinary View of our Complex Global Economy
The global economic backdrop of slow and diminishing growth forecasts is being exacerbated by the financial drama occurring in countries as diverse as China and Greece. There is no end in sight to this morass, because everywhere, incremental policy-making prevails....
Searching in the Shadows of a Restless Credit Cycle: The Street called Geo-Uncertainty
It is an undisputed fact that the over-collateralization of assets (including toxic ones prior to 2008) and the securitization explosion that took place between 2000-2007, created the seeds of the financial crisis via credit-overextension. The response to that was an...
Market Fragility and the Business Cycle: The Tales of Blowing Winds
The tale of the last two-three weeks seems to have given room to a market upswing that is softening due to some rising concerns. Chinese government’s stock market intervention subsided –for now - the local market turmoil but has opened another wound whose story is...
Weekly Market Update
Market Action With an agreement between Greece and its creditors secured over the past weekend major averages around the world rallied and renewed optimism for equity investors. The Technology and Financial sectors led the way in the U.S. thanks to strong earnings...
Weekly Market Update
Market Action The major U.S. averages stayed relatively flat throughout the week. The emphatic “No” vote in Greece weighed down markets early on in the week before a new proposal by the Greek government Thursday night helped spark some recovery. Renewed fears over...
Contemplating the Grexit Scenarios
Most of us at some point were exposed to a great teacher. Joel Fingerman was that teacher for me. Joel taught me in one of his quantitative classes (Business & Economic Forecasting) that the only certain thing about a forecast is that it will be wrong in one way...
The Return of the Son of Nothing: Greece and the EU after Wandering the Wasteland
Let me state it from the beginning: This Greek referendum is absurd simply because the government has failed its people, and also because the troika’s boneheaded mentality did not allow her to cut a deal with the previous government last fall (if the latter had taken...
Weekly Market Update
Market Action Markets started the week in the red across the world thanks to Greece’s abandonment of negotiations and surprise call for a referendum. Equities in the U.S. recovered some losses but still ended the week down more than 1% across the major indices....
