Author: Paul-Martin Foss

If you thought the last two weeks were bad for stocks, they just went from bad to worse. The Dow Jones dropped almost 1,900 points to start the day, an over 7% drop. The S&P 500 dropped 7% too, triggering the New York Stock Exchange’s first circuit breaker, the first time that has happened since […]

With the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) moving last week to cut its target federal funds rate by 50 basis points, all eyes are on next week’s FOMC meeting to see what the Fed does next. The expectations are for the Fed to continue cutting interest rates, as other central banks such as the Australian […]

If you’re not familiar with the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, you should be. Also known as the Plunge Protection Team, the group works behind the scenes to shore up financial markets. Consisting of the Treasury Secretary, Federal Reserve Chairman, and the Chairmen of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission […]

In a move that hasn’t been made since the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve this morning announced that it was cutting its target federal funds rate by 50 basis points, to 1 to 1.25%. The move came just two weeks before the Federal Open Market Committee was scheduled to meet again, at which the Fed […]

Last week was an absolute bloodbath for markets, as stock markets shed trillions of dollars worth of paper wealth. The Dow Jones lost over 3,500 points over the course of the week, prompting the Federal Reserve Chairman to pledge the Fed’s full support to markets on Friday afternoon. But that failed to stem markets’ fall, […]

There seems to be a great deal of complacency among many in the United States about the effect that the coronavirus will have on the US economy. Thus far it’s been treated as an issue that only affects China, and whose effects on the US economy will be limited. But the US and Chinese economies […]

It’s funny sometimes how the mainstream financial media tries to push narratives that are completely at odds with reality. With business activity already slowing in the US, China, and elsewhere, and with the onset of the coronavirus seriously upsetting global supply chains, anyone could tell that 2020 is going to be a rough year for […]

It seems like just a couple weeks ago that analysts were predicting gold to end the year at $1,650. But gold was already pushing that level late last week, as fears about the coronavirus and slowing business activity drove a wave of safe haven buying. Now analysts are predicting gold to rise to $2,000 within […]