Peter’s Blog

In her rate hike announcement last week, Janet Yellen said the Fed was so confident in the health of the US economy that it was raising the Federal Funds rate by a paltry quarter point. Investors are on board, with a wave of irrational exuberance sending the Dow closer to its 20,000-point milestone. However, the […]

Unsurprisingly, the Fed decided to raise rates this week to a range between 0.5 -0.75%. Janet Yellen cited dropping unemployment as one of the primary reasons the FOMC green lit an increase. However, an economy so dependent on cheap money for so long may find it difficult going through the withdrawals of higher rates, especially […]

As many expected, the Federal Reserve raised the benchmark interest rate to a range of 0.5% – 0.7%. During Janet Yellen’s announcement, she said rising employment rates among other measures have led to “considerable progress” for the economy, adding she and her FOMC colleagues expected the economy to “continue to perform well.” In response to […]

Competition among some major exchange groups is beginning around the London gold market, one of the world’s largest gold exchanges. The overall market is worth around $5 trillion and is expected to be hotly contested over the next 5 years as groups like CME Group Inc., Intercontinental Exchange Inc., and the London Metal Exchange fight […]

Peter Schiff’s recent podcast addresses the mistaken comparisons of Trump’s proposed economic stimulus plans to Reagan’s. Investors are looking for Trump to deliver the same results of economic stimulus, deregulation and smaller government are misreading the differences between the early 80s, post-Carter economy, and today’s realities. “There really isn’t any precedent between now and the […]

The United States of America was founded on the principals of limited government and sound money.  Today we have neither.  The growth of the former has largely been a function of its ability to abolish the latter.  A dollar was original defined as a specific weight of gold or silver, and the Constitution limited the […]

Economist and author Jim Rickards and former presidential contender Ron Paul appeared on RT television recently to discuss their 2017 economic and political predictions. Rickards laid out his idea of Trump’s administration forming a “cabinet government,” that might work to decentralize executive power, which has become more concentrated over the last 15 years. Paul looked […]

Across the world this week, many different political strains were generating economic challenges. Venezuela is producing a cautionary tale about hyperinflation, while Italy began expressing its own populist movement. Meanwhile, the Fed has begun nervously testing the waters of the future Trump administration. Venezuela Issuing 20,000 Bolivar Notes to Combat Worthless Currency Venezuela’s Runaway Inflation […]

On Wednesday, the Mortgage Bankers Association released data showing a sharp drop of 0.7% in mortgage applications from a week prior. The MBA’s report blamed higher interest rates on fixed-rate mortgages as the cause for the downturn. Currently, these rates are at a two-year high.

This article was submitted by Shubhendu Pathak, a finance professional working in the Bay Area. Past: Capital One Shubhendu earned his Bachelors (B.Tech) and Masters (M.Tech) from IIT Delhi, and MBA with a concentration in Finance from Emory University. Seeking Alpha published my two articles Will India Be The First Domino To Fall? and You Can’t Just […]