A few more nights of sleep and the economic expansion in the US will be the longest expansion ever in the history of the United States. This expansion means, among other things, that a period of lower growth, if not a recession, could only be a matter of time. The natural behaviour of a healthy economy is one of ascending and descending phases, not of everlasting growth. Of course, the American economy has received a massive overdose of all sorts of monetary drugs, such as quantitative easing... »

Last month, the number of newly created jobs in the U.S. came in far above the expected 263,000. Analysts were expecting an increase of approximately 180,000 jobs. Simply put, whenever the number of newly created jobs is higher than what the market expected, a type of Pavlovian reaction occurs in which markets expect the odds of tighter – that is, less loose – monetary policy to increase as well. Especially when investors, shortly before that, were told that economic growth also came in... »

“In a dark room, you move with tiny steps. You don’t run, but you do move,” as Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), describes the precarious monetary conditions in the Eurozone. A mistake, in my view, because if you’re unable to see, you inevitably get lost. Thus, if you grope in the dark, it would be wise to keep still and wait until some light enters the room or until your eyes become used to the dark.... »