Wolf Richter

“Champion in value destruction”: Russian Businesses Suffocating Under Putin’s Political Agendas

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Russia doesn’t need sanctions for its economy to slither into trouble. Last year, growth slowed to 1.3%, worst in four years. This year started out even shakier. The current entanglements are knocking the economy into outright recession, and fast.

Turns Out, Even The Price of Beer Is Rigged

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Everything is rigged. Stock markets, forex, interest rates, gold, silver, oil…. After battling that rigged world all day, you finally get to take that first big gulp of beer to heal the wounds, knowing that it’s the one thing that hasn’t been rigged against you. Or so you’d think.

‘Hope-for-Growth Momentum Investing’

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“Why worry if the price can only go up” – Societe Generale’s Head of Quantitative Equity Research. Now even after companies cut earnings-per-share estimates, their stocks go up. Because everyone believes that everyone believes that….

Tesla’s Sales Stall, Don’t Even Amount To A Rounding Error

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March auto sales trickled out today. Beneath the wondrous hype about how they’d finally exceeded expectations, after they’d been perfectly awful for five of the prior six months, was a doozie. And the media, which normally fawns all over Tesla, covered it with a blackout.

I Just Got PayPal’s New Absolutely-No-Privacy-Ever Policy

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Sunday, when no one was supposed to pay attention, PayPal sent its account holders an innocuous-sounding email with the artfully bland title, “Notice of Policy Updates.” PayPal didn’t want people to read it – lest they think the NSA is by comparison a group of choirboys.

Stocks on Speed: Leverage Spikes, As Does Risk Of Crash (Look at that Insane Chart!)

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Margin debt is a crummy predictor of a crash. But it has a bone-chilling habit of peaking right around the time stocks do crash. In the last fifteen years, it spiked three times: during the final throes of the bubbles that imploded in 2000 and 2007; and now.

Dollar Hegemony Under Attack By Export-Superpowers Germany and China

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The word dollar didn’t even come up when the Bundesbank signed the agreement with the People’s Bank of China. President Xi Jinping and Chancellor Angela Merkel looked on. It was serious business. Everyone knew what this was about. No one had to say it.

Boss, We Got a Situation in Natural Gas

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This winter, polar vortices sent the price of natural gas into dizzying spikes and plunges, head fakes, and whiplash-inducing turnarounds. But now winter is petering out, and we’re left with a peculiar situation.

German Industry Goes To See Uncle Putin

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The intricate and convoluted connections between Germany and Russia exude a peculiar aroma.