Bank of Canada’s Base Case Straps Its Dollar Around Parity With U.S.

Currency traders appeared very disappointed that the Bank of Canada left interest rates unchanged on Tuesday. The Canadian dollar (“loonie”) immediately bounced sharply from near three-year highs against the U.S. dollar, and the USD/CAD eventually popped over parity (1.0) for the first time in two weeks on Thursday. The accompanying statement suggested that the Bank … Read more

Mark Carney Speaks Plainly About the Role of Canada’s Central Bank

Mark Carney, the governor of Canada’s central bank (Bank of Canada), must be one of the most relaxed central bankers in the Western world. In an interview posted on Paul Kedrosky’s website (minutes 9 to 35), Carney admits that his job is easy compared to the task still facing many of his contemporaries. For example, … Read more

Nassim Taleb Is So Distressed By QE2 That He Ends His Media Blackout

Nassim Taleb, famous author of “Fooled by Randomness” and “The Black Swan”, was so distressed by the Federal Reserve’s roll-out of quantitative easing part 2 that he ended his media black-out and interviewed with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television a few days ago. Anyone familiar with Taleb will not find any new themes or critiques … Read more

As Gross Reiterates His Call for A Top in Bonds, TBT Seems to Bottom

Bloomberg summarized the latest missive from Bill Gross in a piece called “Fed Easing to Signify End of Bull Market, Gross Says.” Gross called an end to the 30-year bull market in bonds thanks to the the Federal Reserve’s planned second round of quantitative easing. I decided to read Gross in his own words, and … Read more