2021-22, a look back and ahead

How do we look back on the financial markets of the past year? Just like in 2020, bond markets ended the year in negative territory. Incidentally, this was not accompanied by significant interest rate hikes. But with the high interest rate sensitivity of most bond markets, it takes very little to get this asset class … Read more

Throwing in the towel

Finally, after nearly a year of excruciatingly soaring inflation rates, Fed Chairman Powell threw in the towel. The ‘temporary’ aspect of inflation was the confusing issue and probably not entirely true. Also the labour market had become so much tighter that continuous liquidity support for financial markets had to be phased out more rapidly. Officially … Read more

Everything is temporary… even stagflation?

Everything is temporary, but sometimes temporality lasts a little longer. And if ‘everything’ means less pleasant things, such as stalled production and inflation, it starts to gnaw. “No, sorry, we did not see it coming,” Fed Chairman Powell said last week, “it was not in our models.” We have seen many forms of temporary scarcity … Read more

More government, less market?

This catch phrase is central in a global debate, but even relevant in the formation of a new government in our own country. Will this lead to a political and financial turnaround that so many have written about in recent years? This call to curb the market, which was leading, among other things, to an … Read more

Olympic fire

Financial environment The financial environment remained at Olympic levels in most regions last month. Economic growth caught up again, especially in the US and Europe. And this, of course, was accompanied by a ‘surprisingly’ higher inflation level: at 3.8%, German inflation reached its highest level since 1993. Although 0.5% higher than expected, the ECB announced … Read more

The final rounds have begun!

We have now reached the final rounds of the interest rate competition. The heat is on, it gets exciting, because who will be the first to admit that the inflationary pressure is getting too much for him or her? Who blinks first? In the group matches there were already countries that dropped out and loved … Read more

Between theory and practice

One of the hardest things to do is to pretend weather conditions are excellent when you have just been caught in a downpour. Not unlike the recently released US inflation rate, the highest in 40 years, that even the most pessimistic economist had not even remotely predicted: 4.2%. It was a pity that the inflation … Read more

If I could do magic…

It seems simple: the government orders money, the central bank supplies it, keeps the interest at around 0% and you get it transferred. Then a few more mouse clicks and your order is on its way to the store. And they click your order through to the factory. Will that work? Probably if we only … Read more

News flash

The world is getting back on track, especially in the US, where nearly 1 million jobs were added in the past month and the services sector also appears to be recovering. Both the vaccination and the emergency plan got off to a flying start. But perhaps another few thousand billion dollars in stimulus will be … Read more