Posts From Ray Pierce
A WELL-FUNCTIONING market is one that enables buyers and sellers to execute transactions quickly, easily and cheaply. Take the market for oil, or for blue-chip shares. Lots of buyers and sellers, gathered on commodity or stock exchanges, mean lots of
IN SEPTEMBER 2017 executives at Hamilton Lane, an asset manager, received an email. Entitled “Abraaj Fund VI warning”, it accused the Abraaj Group, a buy-out firm based in Dubai, of inflating the value of its investments to lure capital into
A YEAR AFTER the start of trade skirmishes between America and China, America’s economy—and the world’s—seem to be holding up. Are trade wars, as President Donald Trump believes, not so costly after all? The immediate impact was always going to
The state of America’s community banks
THE CLASS of the guests reflects the clout of the hosts. In a posh Washington hotel, two powerful visitors—first Maxine Waters, the Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives’ financial-services committee, and then Mike Crapo, the Republican head of the
Emi Nakamura wins the John Bates Clark medal
THE YEAR 2007, when Emi Nakamura earned her PhD, was a strange one for her chosen discipline of macroeconomics. It marked a turning point between complacent consensus and humiliating division. Pre-crisis macroeconomics had such strong faith in the stabilising power
DAYS AFTER allegations of misuse of customer money against Tether rocked the cryptocurrency world, the shock wave has temporarily subsided. The four-year-old currency, which fell to 97 cents last week, has returned to parity with the American dollar. And after
Fears of recession have faded
INVESTORS STARTED the year brooding about the risk of an American recession. Torsten Slok of Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest lender, says clients around the globe were worried. Financial indicators were flashing red, the stockmarket was weak and yields on low-grade
America wants to challenge rogue petrostates
AMERICA HAS been a superpower for decades. As a superpower in global energy markets, however, it is barely an adolescent. As recently as 2015 it was illegal to export oil. Within ten years the shale boom has transformed it into
“USMCA WILL boost economic growth and create jobs.” This was the triumphant headline from the White House’s media machine summarising an official assessment of the impact of America’s new trade deal with Mexico and Canada. According to the United States
ECONOMISTS HAVE long argued about the workings of financial markets. Some, like Eugene Fama, argue that markets adjust swiftly to include all available information, an idea supported by the difficulty of predicting short-term stockmarket moves. Others, like Robert Shiller, posit