In less than two weeks, the Dutch will go to the ballot box. Just a month later, on April 23, the French will follow suit. They will have to vote in a first round who their new president will be to, later, on May 7, during the rather likely second round make their final decision on who will become the new president of the French Republic. After two months of ballot box peace, the French will then go on June 4 and 11 again, but now to vote for parliament. Late September it will be the Germans;

The odds of the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates in March have just spiked. Whether the Fed decides to raise interest rates either at the next FOMC-meeting or afterwards, market interest rates are experiencing a rapid increase. The Fed suddenly became the naked emperor. While market rates are on the rise, the members of the Fed’s interest rate committee must pretend that they now, out of a sudden, do have valid reasons to increase the Fed rate: higher inflation, lower unemployment,

Lately, I had a sensation that the European Central Bank (ECB) is trying to disguise and deny at any cost the fact that the Eurozone economy is in pretty good shape.

Board members of the central bank often begin their conferences or interviews by acknowledging that things are getting better, but they almost immediately follow up with a comment that slower growth is a real possibility. We can also observe this unnatural pessimism when they speak about future monetary policy. They often repeat that the central bank could extend and expand its purchases of government and corporate bonds and that interest rates will remain low for an extended time. Never ever have we heard from an ECB board member that the ECB´s asset purchase program might be reduced and discontinued or that we should