Zurich, Switzerland

I'm often asked where I would live if I had to leave Montreal. And my answer for years has always been the same: Switzerland.

The world's most famous Alpine country offers a high quality of life, clean air, great views from virtually every corner of its borders and a first-rate transportation system.

Vienna, Austria

There's nothing more beautiful than Vienna in the summer. There's also nothing better than waking up to Viennese coffee.

The best coffee in the world, in my opinion, is in Vienna. The Austrians borrowed from the Turks during the 17th century amid two Ottoman invasions and walked away with their own version of coffee – now popularly served in Viennese coffee houses worldwide. Basically, the Austrians took Turkish coffee and added sugar and milk to the mix.

Big bears on the U.S. economy – myself included – remain negative on the prospects of a sustainable economic recovery. I continue to view this rally as an opportunity to sell risky assets like stocks, speculative bonds and several commodities, namely copper and oil.

Back in early 2008 before the financial system almost cratered, oil prices were heading to the Moon as the bull market in commodities went into over-drive. Fuelled by rising oil consumption, falling global crude production and a multi-year bear market in the dollar, investors and speculators alike piled into raw materials. And oil was leading the charge – the single largest constituent in every commodity benchmark index.

Though high oil prices didn't trigger the 2008-2009 recession, it certainly didn't help, either.

Global Finance magazine's August 25 survey of the world's safest banks pegs The Royal Bank of Canada, or RBC, as the world's tenth safest financial institution. Five other Canadian banks managed to fall in the Top 50.

The world's safest bank -- according to Global Finance –is KfW of Germany.

Delray Beach, Florida

Despite massive monetary stimulus by the European Central Bank (ECB), credit growth across the 16-member Euro-zone remained weak through July.

According to the ECB, recent data showed tighter bank lending standards, household debt reduction and tepid corporate demand for borrowing; the widely watched broader monetary aggregate or M3 continued to slow through July to a record low expansion of just 3% for the year-over-year period.

Delray Beach, Florida

Throughout this rally insiders have been selling company shares. That's bearish price action and signals potential trouble for the market at some point.

While en route to visit the editorial group at The Sovereign Society in south Florida this weekend I noticed more bad news in the world of corporate insider trends. Actually, I'd say "alarming" better describes what's happening in August.

A major central bank now requires you to pay for the privilege of having your money on deposit.

For the first time in the post-WW II period, a European central bank has cut its deposit rates to negative or minus 0.25%. This marks an historic shift in central bank monetary policy, at least for Western banks, and submits to the battle of ongoing deflation in bank credit since 2008.

Securitization is still largely dead in the water this year after collapsing in 2008. It remains one of the last important vestiges of credit destruction to bottom as consumers struggle to borrow and the demand for loans remains weak.

Montreal, Canada.

Will this be a V-shaped or a W-shaped economic recovery?

Increasingly, the odds are growing that the United States will encounter a W-shaped recovery process -- not unlike what occurred in late 1937 following four years of economic recovery off the 1932 lows.