They’re at it again. The same publications and pundits who said Hillary Clinton had a greater than 90% chance of winning in 2016 and were preparing magazine covers about the cultural and historic significance of our first female president are now busy proclaiming that a Democratic president in 2020 is inevitable and Trump has no
Investors know that China recently reported its worst quarterly growth ever. What they may not know is that this weak growth is not just a temporary blip but is part of a downtrend that has far to run. The implications of this slowdown in Chinese growth are extremely negative for the world as whole. This article reports
We have written frequently about possible confrontations between the U.S. and China in the South China Sea. International law recognizes claims of six separate nations to parts of that sea, and the U.S. is treaty partners with one of them (the Philippines). China claims the entire sea (except for a narrow shoreline stretch near each
A flash crash is understood as a sudden extreme market movement with no obvious cause and often connected with automated trading systems. Markets have been subject to crashes throughout history, but the flash crash is a more recent phenomenon closely associated with derivatives and computerized algorithmic trading. The first of the computer-era flash crashes was
The time for warnings of a global slowdown is over. The slowdown is here. Over the past few months, we’ve highlighted warnings of slower growth, excessive debt and the potential for a new market crash coming from prominent officials in the international monetary system, including Christine Lagarde of the IMF, economists from the BIS and
The first time I appeared on live financial television was August 15, 2007. It was a guest appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box program at the early stages of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Of course, none of us knew at that time exactly how and when things would play out, but it was clear to me that a
The 2020 presidential election is well underway with Democratic politicians declaring their candidacy almost daily. There may be 20 or more Democratic candidates by the time the race is in full swing this spring. (There may be one or two primary challengers to Trump, but they won’t get far.) We know where Trump stands on
The U.S. was set to activate a new wave of steep tariffs on imports from China on Jan. 1, 2019. Those tariffs would have provoked more retaliation from China, although China’s scope was limited because they were running out of U.S. imports to apply tariffs to since China buys far less from the U.S. than
Major U.S. stock indexes fell about 20%, after achieving all-time highs in September 2018. A 20% fall is the technical definition of a bear market. Still, some analysts are questioning whether a bear market is actually in play or whether the drop was caused by algorithmic trading programs that tend to copy each other and
Markets and Americans in general are relieved that tensions with North Korea have been reduced and denuclearization talks are progressing. But in a complex world, as soon as one crisis is mitigated, another crisis emerges. The new “hot spot” is Iran and its relations with Arab neighbors, Israel and the U.S. President Trump ended the
