Oil prices are soaring, and, as always, we read in many articles that OPEC and Russia are to blame. However, if OPEC and its allies were almighty and the drivers of oil prices, why have Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude plummeted in 2022? OPEC only reacts to demand, but it is not a price-setter. It is a price-taker. WTI is up 13%
If we search the news from 2007, we can find plenty of headlines with the IMF and the Federal Reserve predicting a soft landing. No one seemed to worry about rising imbalances. The main reason is that market participants and economists like to believe that the central bank will manage the economy as if it were a car. The current optimism about the
The United States is borrowing its way to disguise recession. The headline economic figures for the United States look robust. However, details show concerning weaknesses. Real GDP growth surged to 4.9% in the third quarter, above the consensus estimate of 4.5%. However, some analysts, including Bloomberg, expected up to 5% growth based on the
The eurozone economy is more than weak. It is in deep contraction, and the data is staggering. The eurozone manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI), compiled by S&P Global, fell to a three-month low of 43.1 in October, the sixteenth consecutive month of contraction. However, European analysts tend to ignore the manufacturing decline using
The world equity markets ended November with their biggest monthly rally in three years. Optimism comes from better-than-expected inflation figures, expectations of central bank rate cuts, and general acceptance that earnings and economic growth will be weak but acceptable in 2024. The main challenge for investors in 2024 is to confirm these hopes
The year is ending with a significant level of optimism among investors, focusing on an expected string of rate cuts from the Fed and an estimated economic soft landing. However, a soft landing is a very rare event. Since 1975, there have been nine rate hike cycles, and seven of them ended in a recession. Why? We must understand that the concept
The monumental fiscal and monetary hole that Peronists Massa and Fernández have left for Javier Milei is difficult to replicate. Ex-president Mauricio Macri himself explained that the inheritance Milei receives is “worse” than the one he found from Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Peronism leaves a country in ruins and with a massive time bomb for
Market implied Fed Funds rate discount a string of cuts starting in January 2024 and culminating in a 4.492 percent in January 2025. These expectations are based on the perception that the Federal Reserve will achieve a soft landing and that inflation will drop rapidly. However, market participants who assume rate cuts will be bullish may be
Markets closed 2023 with the strongest rally for equities, bonds, gold, and cryptocurrencies in years. The level of complacency was obvious, registering an “extreme greed” level in the Greed and Fear Index. 2023 was also an unbelievably bad year for commodities, particularly oil and natural gas, something that very few would have predicted in the
Argentina maintains a high country risk. In fact, it is currently the second highest in Latin America and the third of the emerging countries if we include Turkey. What is the country risk? It is the spread between the yield of the sovereign bond of a nation compared with the United States Treasury bonds, the lowest risk asset. Investors demand
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.