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Washington Post (March 20)

2024/ 03/ 21 by jd in Global News

“The proposed purchase of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel has done something few issues can do in Washington: forge a bipartisan consensus…. Members of both parties are absolutely molten about the prospects of a 123-year-old American manufacturer flying a Japanese flag.” They shouldn’t be. This is electioneering. “As long as the plant and the jobs there are protected, as Nippon Steel has promised, who owns it doesn’t really matter — unless you’re a politician.”

 

Seeking Alpha (December 11)

2023/ 12/ 12 by jd in Global News

“As markets gear up for major central bank meetings this week, starting with the Federal Reserve on Dec.12-13, all eyes will closely watch for any change in the policymakers’ tone to predict when rate cuts will begin and by how much.” The consensus is that the Fed keep “federal funds target range steady,” with “rate cuts starting in May.”

 

Investment Week (June 12)

2023/ 06/ 13 by jd in Global News

“Earlier this month, US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he does not expect inflation to decline quickly, signalling resistance against the market consensus. We believe it would have to be a severe economic recession for the Fed to begin cutting interest rates before the end of the year, as is currently priced in by the forward markets. Therefore, we believe, interest rates will remain ‘higher for longer’. This is inherently positive for MMFs, where yields and total returns are driven for the most part by central bank rates. A higher-for-longer interest rate trajectory could potentially yield 4.5% to 5% for MMFs in US-dollar terms in the next three, six and 12 months.”

 

Bloomberg (April 1)

2023/ 04/ 02 by jd in Global News

“Rarely has the consensus been more uniformly bearish than it is now. Investors are sitting with the lowest allocation to US stocks in almost two decades.” But this extreme is creating a phenomena not seen “during any bear market in the past four decades.” Since “everyone’s leaning one way, big swings are apt to break out in the other…. Small gains can snowball when the worry is missing out on the next big rally.” As a result, “the S&P 500 just finished the first three months of the year up 7%, rounding out back-to-back quarterly gains.”

 

The Economist (February 2)

2023/ 02/ 04 by jd in Global News

The decisive election of Petr Pavel as the new president of the Czech Republic shows that “all is not lost for the centrist liberal consensus” and also indicates that populism in Europe is, at last, “losing its mojo.” Pavel’s win “marks another blow for the narrative of European politics shifting inexorably to extremes.”

 

Investment Week (August 23)

2022/ 08/ 24 by jd in Global News

In early August, the Bank of England predicted “increased gas prices would cause inflation to rise above 13% by the end of the year.” The consensus is worse. “Goldman Sachs and EY forecast UK consumer price inflation would reach 15%, and Bank of America projected it would peak at 14% in January.” Citi bank has gone further and “riled markets” by forecasting “UK CPI to hit 18.6% in January… beating the 1979 peak when CPI hit 17.8% following the OPEC oil shock.” A recession looks all but inevitable.

 

Bloomberg (February 14)

2022/ 02/ 15 by jd in Global News

“Japan’s largest money managers appear to have come to a consensus about where to allocate their sustainable investment portfolios: anywhere but Japan. The country’s four largest ESG funds have put at least 95% of their net assets in foreign stocks… devoting only a small fraction of their 1.4 trillion yen ($12.1 billion) to domestic holdings.”

 

The Economist (April 28)

2018/ 05/ 01 by jd in Global News

“There is no consensus on what a crypto-asset is. Even within countries, authorities disagree on how to classify them. Are they a commodity, a currency, a security or their own, peculiar asset class?” The Swiss regulator, FINMA, took what may become a popular approach. FINMA’s treatment of crypto-assets will be based “on their actual function—ie, whether they are used for payments; as a utility token that gives its holder access to a specific service; or as an investment. This also means a token’s classification can change over time.”

 

Bloomberg (August 29)

2017/ 08/ 31 by jd in Global News

“Brexit is beginning to look like a classic case of a mountain giving birth to a mouse” and, except for losing its say in EU affairs, little is likely to change. “The U.K. will simply lose its vote in the EU. The rest will remain as it is now for an indefinite period during which a new trade deal will be discussed in the standard EU fashion — slowly, deliberately, with each of the 27 EU countries working through its own agenda until there’s a consensus.”

 

The Economist (November 12)

2016/ 11/ 13 by jd in Global News

Trump’s election “threatens old certainties about America and its role in the world.” America’s allies have been rocked by “the sense that old certainties are crumbling…. The fear that globalisation has fallen flat has whipsawed markets. Although post-Brexit Britons know what that feels like, the referendum in Britain will be eclipsed by consequences of this election. Mr Trump’s victory has demolished a consensus. The question now is what takes its place.”

 

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