IGOV News and Press, iShares S&P/Citigroup International Treasury Bond From 12/01/20

We expect the global economy to rebound strongly next year. But structural headwinds remain. Will the post-pandemic bounce trigger a durable and broad-based global reflation? For further details see: Will 2021 Mark The Launch Of A Durable Global Recovery?

The Bank of England and Fed have scope to double QE programs. But using GFC playbook in a liquidity trap may have little impact, as BoJ found. Evidence on the efficacy of negative interest rates is also mixed. COVID-19-bond financed stimulus is unlimited in size and not tempor...

The world economy has really been rocking, and we've been talking about this since the summer, as can be seen by looking at global business activity, PMIs. Copper prices are near four-year highs and have continued to rally through the last several months. And unemployment has really b...

I thought it would be good to share a few recent charts that tell interesting stories. First up are two charts that show the relationship between the size of the central bank balance sheets and inflation rates. You can now get the neutral NGDP and NGDP gap measures in both Haver a...

COVID's precision-like timing was supernatural - nothing short of sinister. A once-in-a-century international pandemic surfacing in the waning days of an unrivaled global financial bubble. According to the IIF, U.S. debt is on course to expand about 13% this year to $80 trillion. As a...

We now have $16.9 trillion of negative yielding debt bouncing around the world. China has joined the crowd and just sold negative yielding debt in Europe. Virtually everyone supposes that this type of magic will not take place in the United States. For further details see: ...

Global equity market cap has certainly had its ups and downs, but over time the annualized growth rate of this statistic is about 7%. The market cap of global equities today is about 60% higher than it was in late March at the height of the Covid panic. Chart #4 below shows how th...

We remain neutral on equities overall. But believe global markets are likely to continue to trend higher. Investors must look forward to 2021 and from around Q221 the prospect of increasing availability of vaccines. For further details see: Global Perspectives - Cyclical...

Central bank mandates are to target inflation, not to bankrupt central governments because they do not approve of fiscal policies. Central banks always have had to maintain their balance sheet sizes, and there were a number of test cases of quantitative easing over the past decades. ...

The solution now to the enormously ballooning debts in developed economies: Firing up consumer price inflation and letting it run hot, according to the newest dogma trotted out incessantly by the Fed and other central banks, and hope that rapid economic growth will take care of the rest. The...