Central Asia is the region between the Caspian Sea and China, bounded in the north by Russian Siberia and in the south by Iran and Afghanistan. In the old days, it was known under the names of Transoxiana or Western Turkestan. It was inhabited both by nomadic herders who roamed the steppes and by urban Read More
View from Crystal Bay: Taking on Inflation, Then and Now
The scepter of inflation is haunting the land. It remains to be seen whether it’s only Casper the Ghost, good for scaring small children, or whether we’re dealing with a full blown Poltergeist. We will have our answer soon enough. But it’s not too early to ask ourselves what should we do if relevant authorities Read More
Well, this is a bull market, you know!
Here in the summer months, markets have reacted negatively to the global increase in cases of the Delta variant and the challenges in getting larger swaths of the US population vaccinated against the virus. The market sold off swiftly last week only to recover the losses over the last few days. Newspaper headlines couldn’t resist Read More
View From Crystal Bay: The Death of US Single Stock Futures
The coronavirus pandemic finished off floor trading at venerable institutions like the CME, CBOE, and the LME. I wrote about this topic recently. There was another venue that quietly shut down last year. OneChicago, the US platform for trading single stock futures, closed its doors on September 18, 2020. Single stock futures are a wonderful Read More
From the Trading Desk: Commodities’ Inflationary Outlook
Uncertainty and fear of higher-than-expected inflation have been on investors’ minds for the past few weeks. Last week it was announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose more than 5% year over year, amounting to its biggest increase since 2008. Stocks in the U.S. did not respond in line with CPI figures however, considering Read More