You might think history teaches; it repeats;
page after page, a poem in perfect rhyme
tolls echoing bells from both sides of the sheets
for births and funerals, tells the time
of ageless Alice, Hamlet’s fallacies—
the latest light from vanished galaxies

– Suite of Mirrors

Check the Rhyme:

“U.S. consumers borrowed heavily in November, boosting their outstanding credit higher than in any month in four years, the Federal Reserve said. Outstanding consumer credit rose by $15.6 billion, or triple the $5.2-billion increase in October, far exceeding the $6.5-billion rise economists forecast. It was the largest increase since a $17.3-billion surge in November 1995. Revolving credit, primarily involving credit cards, bounced up by $4.4 billion, a 9.1% annual rate. Nonrevolving credit, which includes auto loans and loans for buying mobile homes and boats or financing education and travel, shot up by $11.2 billion, or a 17.1% annual rate.”

Is this the latest news? No, it’s from a previous poem: January 2000.

Here’s January 2018:

“Consumer borrowing rose in November by the largest monthly amount in 16 years, according to the Federal Reserve on Monday. Total consumer credit increased a solid $28 billion in November to a record seasonally adjusted $3.83 trillion, posting an annual growth rate of 8.8%. Economists had been expecting an $18 billion increase. Credit-card borrowing powered the increase. Revolving credit, which is mostly made up of credit-card loans, accelerated to an annual rate of 13.3% in November, the fastest pace since last December and well above the 9.9% gain in October. Non-revolving credit, which covers loans for education and cars, rose at an annual rate of 7.2% in November, the fastest pace since October 2016 and above the 5.3% rate in October.”

Check the Rhyme:

“Big stock-market gains are leading a number of investors to abandon defensive positions taken to protect against a market downturn, the latest sign that many doubters are shedding caution as the long rally rolls on. …..Because they eat into returns more investors are concluding that paying for hedges to protect against any sudden downturn is a waste of money”.

Check the Rhyme:

“A growing number of investors are taking out loans backed by their stock holdings, which worries Finra. At Morgan Stanley, for example, securities-based and other “tailored” loans stood at $40.1bn at the end of September last year, almost double the balance at the same stage in 2014.  But Finra said on Monday it was concerned about whether firms are adequately disclosing the risks to customers. These risks include “the potential impact of a market downturn, the potential tax implications if pledged securities are liquidated and the potential impact of an increase in interest rates”.

Check the Rhyme:

Retail Investors Are on Their Longest Buying Spree of the Bull Market. Clients at TD Ameritrade added to stock holdings for a 11th straight month in December, one of the longest buying streaks for retail investors ever recorded by the brokerage. That helped push the firm’s Investor Movement Index (IMX), a measure that has tracked clients’ positioning in the market since 2010, to a new record for the second month in a row.

Check the Rhyme:

“Euro-Area Economic Confidence Soars to Nearly Two-Decade High. Confidence in the euro area continued its advance at the end of 2017, capping what was probably the strongest year for the economy in a decade. The European Commission’s measure of sentiment touched its highest since late 2000 in December. The reading of 116 was above the median forecast of 114.8 in a Bloomberg survey and was based on an improvement in the outlook for industry and services”.

History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes – attributed to Mark Twain

If you know of other news rhymes, please add them to the comment section below.