Basic Reports

The Perversity of Negative Interest, Report 17 Nov

Today, we want to say two things about negative interest rates. The first is really simple. Anyone who believes in a theory of interest that says “the savers demand interest to compensate for inflation” needs to ask if this explains negative interest in Switzerland, Europe, and other countries. If not, then we need a new […]

Rising Rates Falling Assets, Report 30 Dec 2018

Last week, we wrote about the concept of discounting. This is how to assess the value of any asset that generates cash flow. You calculate a present value by discounting earnings for each future year. And the discount rate is the market interest rate. We said: “If the Fed can manipulate the rate of interest, […]

Are Stocks Overvalued, Report 24 Dec 2018

We could also have entitled this essay How to Measure Your Own Capital Destruction. But this headline would not have set expectations correctly. As always, when looking at the phenomenon of a credit-fueled boom, the destruction does not occur when prices crash. It occurs while they’re rising. But people don’t realize it, then, because rising […]