Is Shanghai Composite Coming To Life?

Shanghai Composite peaked in October 2007 at 6124 after rising almost six fold from July 2005 low of 1015. Then along with rest of the global equity markets it crashed, finally bottoming in October 2008 by reaching a low of 1665. Since then once a global leader, it has been a global laggard. In the…

A Gentler Slope for the Fiscal Cliff

Again from Bloomberg: Bernanke in a February House hearing: “Under current law, on January 1, 2013,” Bernanke said, “there’s going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases.” Bloomberg contd. The vivid imagery and false urgency of the term transformed budget arcana into a national Wile E. Coyote moment. The…

The U.S. Should Walk the Talk on Free Trade

From Bloomberg: Trade accounted for about 29.2 percent of U.S. economic activity in 2010. That makes the U.S. the most closed of all developed nations according to “trade intensity,” which is calculated as the sum of exports and imports, divided by gross domestic product. […] Standard measures of trade intensity, if anything, probably understate the…