The Bond Yield Conundrum
August 14, 2006
This past week I sent a special edition Outside the Box titled "Breakpoint in Iraq." I hope that you found it to be both timely and insightful. Today's article should be equally interesting with a unique take on the behavior of bond yields. My good friend Richard Duncan thinks rates were acting a little funny over the past couple of years, and he sheds some light as to why that might have been.
Richard Duncan has worked as a financial analyst in Asia for more than 18 years, conducting research and publishing investment reports on companies, industries, and economies from India to Japan. One of the first to warn of the impending economic crisis in Thailand in the mid-1990s, Mr. Duncan worked as a consultant for the International Monetary Fund at the height of the Asian financial crisis and subsequently joined the World Bank in Washington, D.C. He is also author of the widely acclaimed book The Dollar Crisis, published in 2003. Mr. Duncan currently works for ABN AMRO Asset Management as the Head of Investment Strategy.
How Japan financed global reflation
May 16, 2005
This week's letter is by Richard Duncan who is the author of one of my favorite books called The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures. Richard is based in Hong Kong and is one of the more thoughtful financial analysts I know.
Many people have talked about Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke's printing press speech in 2002, which created quite a storm with the media and financial writers. Richard notes that he repeated the theme of that speech while in Japan in 2003, but unlike us the Japanese ran with the idea. In this piece he looks at how Japan printing ¥35 trillion may have been the cause for world reflation in 2002-03.
Richard lays out the facts, the evidence, and the results of turning on the printing presses and that is why it was picked for this week's Outside the Box.