Its all rather confusing. But not any more so than usual. Things are always confusing in the present and clear in the past. What is confusing today, are the number and strength of the conflicting signals. We therefore consider, in broad summary, the bull and bear cases for general conditions. 

Is Caterpillar a US company or a Latin American one, or a European one, or an Asian one? Is Santander Spanish, British, or Latin American? Is Alstom French, or Nestle Swiss, or HSBC British, or Chinese? Are any of the large listed Swiss companies Swiss? When we say equities are cheap and bonds expensive, to

Concepts like volatility and correlation can be hard to visualize or grasp intuitively. I sometimes like to think simplistically about complicated matters. The insights gained are often far from simplistic. Hedge funds are unfortunately, a complicated subject, and try as one might, it is difficult to reduce the complexity of the issues. One of the

In this time of emerging market capital flight, governments may be tempted to defend their currencies. This is a mistake. Such a defense rarely works. As governments buy local currency and sell hard currency, foreign reserves are further depleted signaling weakness to speculators who are encouraged to further short the currency. This establishes a death

Economic growth in the developed markets appears to be in a general if tepid recovery. The US continues to exhibit steady recovery in economic growth supported by a robust housing recovery and manufacturing which has even now widened to a slightly healthier labor market. Tempering this is a falling participation rate, which is troubling since