Eurozone inflation was stable in July and unemployment reached its lowest rate since February 2009. In your opinion, how that can impact the ECB’s interest rates?
I think that that the ECB might be happy about the growth outlook, but inflation is still looking really subdued. There is still some more slack in the economy, which would mean the European Central Bank is fairly patient and extremely gradual in its policy.
An opinion exists that London’s euro-clearing hub works very efficiently and that making any alterations to current practices will hurt the EU economy. Therefore, it might be a purely political question rather than economic. What do you think on this matter? Why?
I think London’s clearing system does work pretty efficiently, but there are issues related to the clearing of euro-denominated securities taking place in the jurisdiction beyond the ECB’s influence that will arise once the UK leaves the EU. A great concern is how the efficiency of the overall clearing system will be affected once euro-denominated clearing moves to somewhere in the EU, more precisely, in the Euro zone. Does it make sense for banks to have one part of their clearing infrastructure in London and another part somewhere in continental Europe? In my opinion, such system certainly becomes less efficient, but the issue is whether some banks and other institutions decide to move the entire clearing infrastructure to another part of Europe. I am not sure whether we have a complete parity over that yet, but it is certainly a problem that will come forward over the next two years
We expect some consolidation into August for Equities. Indeed, Risk/Reward seems momentarily stretched on the S&P500 Index, while the EuroStoxx 600 could be eying a second leg down into August. Following that, these trends should resume up possibly from late August / early September into October.
On Thursday, the US Dollar was driven by bulls that pushed the given currency through the 100- and 55-hour SMAs and the monthly PP. Nevertheless, a resistance cluster formed by the weekly PP and the 200-hour SMA proved to be a solid upper limit that reversed the rate down to a relatively similar level as on Thursday morning. The failure to reach the upper boundary of the symmetrical triangle indicates that this pattern may not be strong enough any longer to confine the pair in its bounds. Thus, it is quite likely that the current momentum downwards is to persist until the weekly S1 at 110.48, possibly. Meanwhile, the upper limit could be the 100-hour SMA and the monthly PP or in case of solid upside risks resulting from US fundamentals -even the aforementioned 200-hour SMA circa 111.70.
It is a widely accepted postulate that excessive debt slows growth while lowering interest rates is a remedy applied to stimulate growth. The most recent US economic recovery has registered unusually slow growth in a low interest environment marked by a sharp increase in debt. The US national debt doubled in the course of the Obama administration over eight years. Deficit spending is thought to be a measure conducive to stimulating a sluggish economy. A combination of low interest rates and budget stimulus should have produced strong growth and not growth rates remaining under 2% for years on end.
At the end of June, I was honoured to be awarded Entrepreneur of the Year at the Elevator Awards at Mercure Ardoe House Hotel.
I say honoured because our small corner of the world is home to an outsized number of successful businesses run by the brightest minds. It is inspiring that the region has so many great and growing businesses from brewers and gyms through to engineers and publishers.
The first person who introduced the concept of “stalking” in investing was Van Tharp when he described his Ten Tasks of Trading. One of these tasks was: “stalking your trade”. Just like a cat stalks its prey looking for the best possible moment to pounce, so a trader can stalk an entry to get the best price for entry.
It is ironic that the fate of the US dollar depends on whether Saudi Arabia will continue to insist on accepting only US dollars for oil. The Free Thought Project had a good article by Jay Syrmopoulos on this subject on 16th July 2017, Russia and China Declare All Out War on US Petrodollar – Prepare for Exclusive Trade in Gold, which was picked up by Activist Post. It is the position of the US dollar as the main world reserve currency that has made it possible for the US to continue in its role as the global policeman or, as some would have it, the imperialist bully.
