Expert opinion

The US national debt is now well over $20T thanks to a debt limit suspension approved by Congress that also includes $15.25B for hurricane relief.

Crude Oil is showing an interesting technical pattern. The rally that has developed in the first half of September has now exceeded the 200 days moving average. Furthermore the WTI is now testing the not less important trendline that joins the 2014 top with the decreasing highs of the first half of this year. This movement is part of an accumulation that had begun form the lows of 2016 and gained strength on the progressively rising lows of the last 12 months.

Analysts warned that UK’s economy will most likely downgrade this year. In your opinion, how long will it take for the UK economy to stabilise?

I would suggest that it depends on exactly what we mean by stabilise; in my opinion, growth is rather to be stable for the next few quarters, but it will still hold at a relatively low level. If we look at the GDP growth in the second quarter, it was 0.3%, slightly higher than in the first quarter. My current view is that the GDP will probably hold at the same level during the H2 of this year and in 2018 as well. Growth will be relatively stable, but again, stable at a relatively low level.
If you ask me when do we think that growth will be turned to a certain trend rate of growth, which is probably closer to 0.5% a quarter, then we do not think that this is likely to happen anytime soon; maybe in the H2 of 2018 at the earliest.

It has, to put it mildly, been a good year for passive investment funds that track a broad market index like the FTSE 100. Much of it has been at the expense of their active peers which try to seek out undervalued investments. Almost $500 billion has moved from the latter to the former so far this year. This keeps up a trend that has seen massive flows from active to passive strategies in recent years and the gradual growth of passive over the last 30 years.

The need for food is universal but the production and distribution chain is not as technological yet as it should be

This Newsletter has repeatedly brought the attention of readers to the situation of the US dollar and the extreme indebtedness of Washington, which now practically has a national debt of 20 trillion without calculating all the other liabilities. Proposing a defense budget of almost 700 billion to maintain over 800 bases globally is going to help lead to national bankruptcy.

At the end of 2016 (1), I wrote an article about the STOXX Supersector Europe 600 Health Care Index, pointing out that there were technical signs of a possible recovery. I indicated that the Index in July 2016 reached an important high at about 780, and I suggested that this was the level to overcome to have the first confirmation that the healthcare European equity market had regained its strength.

Market observers generally agree that US asset prices, namely, stocks, bonds and real estate, are expensive if not over-priced.