It’s that time of year when Australia’s bank executives go through their equivalent of a reality-TV audition. Like an episode of the X Factor, the parliamentary hearings into the four major banks are conducted in an atmosphere of high theater. Chief executives attempt to carry off pitch-perfect performances while the parliamentarians sat in judgment try to launch a few …

  One simple chart is creating a lot of buzz in markets. It shows that for the first time in history, one bitcoin is worth more than one troy ounce of gold. Despite the flurry of discussion this factoid has generated, many are stupefied, not quite knowing what to do with this information or how to trade on it. Maybe …

  Bloomberg Here’s another way of thinking about how far stocks have come in nine years. Relative to balances in money market funds and cash among mutual fund managers, the value of global equities is the highest in almost two decades. That observation courtesy of Ned Davis Research, which framed the comparison as an indication “cash is underweight” in Planet …