I last wrote about the Baltic Dry Index (“BDI”) in August 2014 in an article entitled “Is the Baltic Dry Index a Leading Economic Indicator”. I concluded that: “The BDI is not a crystal ball that shows the future of world growth. It is a measure of the supply demand…
Last week the US released a Senate report on CIA torture. Apparently the torture included “rectal feeding”, which sounds more like sexual assault to me. Anyway, it appears little was gained from the torture, perhaps other than gratifying retribution. It has been known for centuries that torture doesn’t work. The…
These days, we are told that the US has powered out of recession and the country can look forward to GDP growth next year of 3% or so. Or perhaps not. The chart below shows annual growth in private sector jobs in the US since 1949. It is not pretty.…
The US Federal Reserve’s Free Money policies [Zero Interest Rate Policy (“ZIRP”) and Quantitative Easing (“QE”)] have favoured the provision of debt to the shale oil industry. This is one of many areas of resource misallocation within the US economy and it may be the catalyst for economy-wide disaster. The fracking…
I am sure we are all familiar with the losing trade that becomes a long term investment. In fact, I have one in my portfolio right now: just to remind me of the terrible cost of not cutting losses. The Psychology of Losing Research by Tversky and Kahneman (Judgement under…
This post is from the Voice of Reason: Gordon Barratt. For those that avidly read the business pages, you will have noticed a building theme of late: beating up Australian banks. Every second article seems to be heralding that the halcyon days of the banking sector are in the past, for this…