Deeper Analysis
May 2026 in Figures
May 29, 2026
For many weeks now, Trump administration officials have been saying that a peace deal may be just around the corner, but the conditions for such have so far proven elusive. That hasn’t mattered. Repeat something long enough and people will come to believe it, and so financial markets in the third month of the Middle […] More
April 2026 in Figures
April 30, 2026
A second full month has now passed without an end to the Middle East war that had been projected initially as likely to last only a few weeks. In March with world energy prices soaring like it was 1974, 1979 or the late summer of 1990, financial markets experienced a significant drop in the appetite […] More
March and First Quarter 2026 in Figures
March 31, 2026
March was dominated by wild daily and intra-daily swings in financial vital signs as sentiment about the outcome and duration of the Middle Eastern war swung with each news flash, and investors tried to figure out the implications for the path of energy prices, general inflation, and the shape of Middle East oil facilities when […] More
How Often Do U.S. Stock Market Corrections Evolve into Bear Markets?
March 20, 2026
With key U.S. stock market indices fast approaching correction status, I asked Google AI Overview how often previous corrections of the S&P 500 (defined as a cumulative high-to-low movement of at least 10%) have evolved into a bear market, where the requirement is a decline of 20% or more. I learned that Corrections are actually […] More
Post-Covid Inflation Heavily Influenced by Global Factors
March 16, 2026
National inflationary trends this decade have by and large followed a similar pattern. Consumer price inflation peaked in June 2022 at 9.1% in the United States, at 8.1% in Canada and at 10.6% in Euroland. The British and Turkish CPI peaks of 11.1% and 85.5% happened in October 2022. Swiss inflation crested at 3.5% a […] More
February 2026 in Figures
February 28, 2026
U.S.-generated uncertainty, which had been so prominent in 2025, somehow managed to build to an even greater extent in the first month of President Trump’s second term. Despite being the creator of the chaos, America’s currency benefited from safe-haven demand, so losses versus currencies against which the dollar fell during February were comparatively muted. The […] More
Wondering If the Dollar Will Be A-Changing
February 16, 2026
There has been a proliferation in recent months of articles pondering if the U.S. currency might be going down a path leading to the end of its hegemonic role as the world’s reserve currency without equal, a function that bestows many unique beneficial advantages on the U.S. economy. These examinations are married to forecasts that […] More
January 2026 in Figures
January 31, 2026
The most spectacular financial market changes last month involved precious metals, whose prices posted impressive net gains despite enormous sell-offs on the final trading day of the month. At record peaks of $121.79 per ounce for silver and $5,626.8 for gold, those metal had accrued gains of 72% and almost 30%, but closed with net […] More
December 2025 and Full 2025 in Figures
January 1, 2026
Gold and silver prices soared in 2025, as the dollar experienced its weakest performance in almost a decade. Despite central bank interest rate cuts in Europe and North America, long-term interest rates advanced somewhat. Bitcoin swung all over the place but fell only around 6% on balance. Lower oil prices enabled reported total inflation to […] More
October 2025 in Figures
October 31, 2025
Ten-year sovereign debt yields declined substantially in the U.K. and Canada but experienced much smaller net changes during October in other economies in the table below. A 25-basis point cut in the federal funds target late in the month contrasted with decisions in Japan and Euroland not to change policy. Central bank policy reviews were […] More
