In many respects, cyberspace seems like old hat today. The ironic Onion article about the man who lives in cyberspace, basically buying books on Amazon and checking his friends on Facebook, sums it up nicely. William Gibson’s seminal novel Neuromancer, which introduced the term cyberspace, holds up pretty well, and The Matrix remains entertaining.

My experience yesterday at the Markets Media Global Markets Summit, however, really brought home for me how technology continues to evolve and affect what we do, as investors, on a daily basis. By and large, the panels were concerned with the changes in the trading infrastructure—legal, technological, and institutional—that underlie the financial system.

In the previous four posts in this series, we focused on the role of the dollar in the U.S. economy. We found that the money supply has actually been growing more slowly than the economy as a whole, and that, for most sectors, credit isn’t a problem either. In fact, scarcity—one of the two key properties of money—is being maintained at reasonable levels. We also looked at how that might change in the future, and what to watch for.

Now, let’s move on to the role of the dollar in the international system—specifically, the question of whether the dollar will collapse or at least lose its role as the world’s reserve currency. In this discussion, our conclusions about scarcity remain, but an added dimension must be considered: how scarcity has been maintained for the dollar, not just in absolute terms but also in relative terms, compared with other currencies. Next, we have to reintroduce the concept of exchangeability, which, besides being a fundamental characteristic of money, is also key in analyzing the future of the dollar.

We talked yesterday about how consumer price inflation has been pretty moderate, and why that is. To recap: The speed at which money circulates has declined, even as the Fed forces bank reserves into the financial system, meaning that when the economy recovers, when the banking system gets its mojo back, and when lending starts to take off again, we can expect inflation to accelerate—potentially very much so.

A point worth mentioning here is that the Fed does have tools it can deploy to help limit inflation. And although the Fed has said it will wait to do so, inflation is actually a problem we know how to solve. This is something to watch, therefore, but shouldn’t become a long-term systemic problem.

Yesterday, we talked about how the money supply has not expanded unduly, given the level of economic growth. We also looked at credit growth and found that it too was running at or below the levels expected, considering the level of economic growth. There appears to be no sign of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus in these measures.

Does that mean we’re off the hook on inflation? The short answer is no, and the reason is interesting. First, though, a bit of background.

This will be a very short post as I’m off to Commonwealth’s National Conference in Phoenix. It’s always a great week—with a wide range of interesting content, wonderful events, and even better people—and I’m excited for it.

I’ll try to post something else later this afternoon, but for the moment, the interesting story of the day appears to be politics. The reelection of Chris Christie in New Jersey and the defeat of the Tea Party candidates in Virginia and Alabama suggest that the center may be getting some traction. Hopefully this will translate to a more businesslike, less confrontational environment in Washington.

I’ve written before about the potential problems lurking in the financial system. LIBOR, for example, was something I started covering last year. Looking at the papers today, though, even I am surprised by the sheer number—not to mention magnitude—of the problems that are showing up.

In just one of today’s papers, the Wall Street Journal, we have the following articles:

• A1 – “SAC to Plead Guilty to Securities Fraud”
• C1 – “Rabobank Is Fined, CEO Is Out in Libor Settlement”
• C1 – “Troubles for J.P. Morgan in Its Effort to Settle”
• C3 – “Currency-Trading Probe Gains Momentum”
• C4 – “NASDAQ Glitch Prompts Trading Halt in Some Markets”
• C16 – “European Banks Trapped in Legal Limbo”

I’m at the airport waiting to board a plane, so this will be a short post. Fortunately, today it writes itself. I mentioned last year how proud all of us here at Commonwealth’s research and asset management groups were to be named, again, to Financial Advisor and Private Wealth magazines’ list of investment research and wealth management all-stars. Last year, we had more winners than any other firm, for the second year in a row.

Well, we’ve done it again, and you can read the article here. Once again, we have the greatest number—and scope—of winners, and we’re the only major broker/dealer included.

Now that we are entering peak week for earnings reporting, it is time to take a look at what that means for the stock market. We have some data so far, but not much, so I want to defer a detailed analysis to next week. For the moment, let’s look at financials.

I wrote back on June 11 and July 10 about the pressure the financial services industry, particularly banks, was likely to come under and the negative effect that was likely to have. Specific points I made were regulations, capital requirements, more operational scrutiny, slowing mortgage demand, and others.

First of all, thank you to everyone who wrote nice things about my appearance on CNBC yesterday—much appreciated. It’s fun to do that kind of appearance because you never know exactly what will be discussed, and you have to prepare. Keeps me on my toes!

This will be a short post because I’m in New York attending a conference on ETFs put on by iShares. ETFs, for those who haven’t run into them, are exchange-traded funds—that is, a portfolio of assets (stocks, bonds, what have you) that is traded like a single share of stock. They are similar to a mutual fund that tracks a specific stock or bond index, such as the Barclays Capital 1-3 Year Treasury Index. ETFs trade on one of the major stock markets and can be bought and sold throughout the trading day, like a stock, at the current market price. And, like stock investing, ETF investing involves principal risk—the chance that you won’t get all the money back that you originally invested—market risk, underlying securities risk, and secondary market price. ETFs have become a major part of the investing landscape over the past several years, changing the way many people and institutions invest.

One of the great things about working at Commonwealth is the depth of knowledge of our team. Today, we have another post from Peter Essele, one of our portfolio managers and analysts.