The cat is out of the bag: last Thursday, president Donald Trump announced that he will nominate Fed-board member Jay Powell as Chair of the world’s most important central bank. After Trump kept the press and financial markets in suspense for weeks, just as if it were an episode of his hit series The Apprentice, he finally announced that he will nominate Jay Powell to replace current Fed Chair Janet Yellen as of February next year. What can we expect from Jay Powell in the coming years while

Now is perhaps the right moment to reflect upon the gold market. The gold price recently dropped below $1,300 per troy ounce and currently stands at a little bit less than $1,280/oz. After a strong beginning of the year, gold prices have suffered from a setback in recent months. To such an extent that the year-to-date return on gold measured in euro´s has turned slightly negative (-1.1%). The euro, after all, strengthened against the dollar. In effect, gold investors have nothing to show for... »

The Federal Reserve ended its QE3 large-scale asset purchase program already in 2014, which consisted of monthly purchases of billions of US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). But the Fed never did really end QE. The Fed reinvested the principal of maturing bonds automatically into new bonds. The Fed´s balance sheet thus never shrunk. Until this month. The Fed has now finally decided to no longer automatically reinvest the principal of maturing bonds. The grand finale of QE is beginning and, in a certain sense, it is only beginning now. How will the Fed´s balance sheet reduction be executed and what will be the consequences?