The Japan news published by the Yomiuri Shimbun reports that Shinzo Abe's presentation did after all get some attention at Davos, much of it evidently misguided...

The current unrest in the Ukraine is very reminiscent of the failed 'Orange Revolution' that pushed current pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich when Western favorite, Viktor Yushchenko, won the 2004 election. However, Yanukovitch is likely robbing his country blind.

Jim Grant Is calling a spade a spade. Grant has always been a vocal critic of the Fed, and several recent comments of his in an interview he gave to CNBC are worth highlighting...

Turkey is trying to restore some credibility to its faltering currency. In defiance of political pressure, it has raised rates at a special meeting. And they didn't waste time with baby step rate hikes either...

When you have a job as a central planner: everybody else thinks only their plan is the right one, and they are trying to get you to implement it. Apparently it hasn't yet occurred to anyone that central planning simply does not work.

When you have a job as a central planner: everybody else thinks only their plan is the right one, and they are trying to get you to implement it. Apparently it hasn't yet occurred to anyone that central planning simply does not work.

After releasing FOMC statements throughout the year that looked like carbon copies of each other, the December statement boasted quite a few differences.

The jitters that caused ripples across global stock markets last week stem from a redeployment of cash between emerging markets and the next investment opportunity. As currencies in emerging markets such as Argentina, Turkey and South Africa continue to falter, the U.S. stock market could be the next best option for investors.

Both Venezuela and Argentina have a problem with their foreign exchange reserves. In both cases it stems from trying to keep up the pretense that their currencies are worth more than they really are.

As Robert Murphy pointed out last week, yet another example of 'mission creep' at the Fed has recently surfaced. As readers are probably aware, the Fed is one of the bureaucracies that are constantly rewarded for failure.

In the gold sector one frequently encounters what we refer to as either bullish or bearish 'hooks'. Before explaining this concept further, we should note here that we actually fell for one of those after it had seemingly become slightly less reliable for a while.

A Noteworthy Warning: James Stack, president of Stack Investment Research, warns subscribers to his newsletter, InvesTech Research, that the 5-year-old bull is "aging rapidly".

Well, it has been more than 15 years of 'no warming' now. Time to get worried? You betcha. A new paper by Dr. Trenberth acknowledges the importance of the so-called Pacific Decadal Oscillation in determining temperature cycles.

We already alluded to Ben Bernanke's admission that he once again suffers from advanced bubble blindness, but there were a few more pronouncements contained in his final speech as Fed chairman that are worth looking at

We merely want to point out that the World Bank has joined the chorus of optimists who hope it will all be 'business as usual.'

Self-similar patterns are fairly frequently observed in the stock market but are they predictive?