GLOBAL ECONOMICS AND POLITICS
Leo Haviland provides clients with original, provocative, cutting-edge fundamental supply/demand and technical research on major financial marketplaces and trends. He also offers independent consulting and risk management advice.
Haviland’s expertise is macro. He focuses on the intertwining of equity, debt, currency, and commodity arenas, including the political players, regulatory approaches, social factors, and rhetoric that affect them. In a changing and dynamic global economy, Haviland’s mission remains constant – to give timely, value-added marketplace insights and foresights.
Leo Haviland has three decades of experience in the Wall Street trading environment. He has worked for Goldman Sachs, Sempra Energy Trading, and other institutions. In his research and sales career in stock, interest rate, foreign exchange, and commodity battlefields, he has dealt with numerous and diverse financial institutions and individuals. Haviland is a graduate of the University of Chicago (Phi Beta Kappa) and the Cornell Law School.
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Past and future money printing by the Federal Reserve alongside sustained low interest rates dreams of promoting real economic growth. Central to the imaginative quest is a vigorous effort to rally real equity prices and real real estate prices (especially homes). However, these economic guardians and their allies will settle for nominal GDP increases and nominal rallies in stocks and real estate. What is one key reason? The American consumer is the foundation of the United States economy, and its balance sheet still needs repair in nominal terms.
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Desperate Housewives (Episode 2)- The Home Front
For major trends in the world economy and its equity, commodity, and interest rate playgrounds, observers should closely monitor the direction and level of the broad real United States trade-weighted dollar. Over the next several months, the world increasingly will worry about American economic sluggishness (or even decay). The globe will focus more and more on America’s deficit problems rather than those elsewhere. In this process, the all-time dollar lows in the broad real trade-weighted dollar eventually will be challenged.
The generals of the world economy arguably have fired off most of their bullets. Low interest rates will continue to aid economic growth, but low nominal interest rates are old news on the current trading battlefield. The benefits of legislative stimulus programs are winding down. In addition, another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve and its allies is less likely than before to bolster the economy and equities since that weapon already has been unleashed. Besides, another round of quantitative easing would warn of weakness (suggesting the terrors of very mediocre growth and even deflation) rather than confidence.
With the US 2010 election this autumn, it will be difficult to enact additional noteworthy financial stimulus soon. Will the current Congress or the new one extend some or all of the expiring tax cuts? The current gridlock probably will continue into the new Congress, especially given chances for Republican seat gains in the fall contest.
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Goldilocks,_Green_Shoots,_and_the_US_Dollar
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