Enzio's Clock

In today's local South China Morning Post we read of dollar strength and yen weakness: risk appetite returned (yesterday).  The logic was that people are getting risk-friendlier because they are banking on Obama's, China's, Australia's and others' stimulus packages.m Particularly Obama' plan to help people with mortgages caused market cheer.

Over the next couple of days we will issue more comprehensive thoughts for you. Suffice it to say, for now, that none of these stimulus packages can work until banks want to lend again - or, in the jargon of our Economic Clock™, until we see a true "excess supply of money" emerge, this time from the banking sector. That will take a long time to emerge.