You cannot make this stuff up. From the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s web site: Michael Alix has been named a senior vice president in the Bank Supervision Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He will serve as a senior advisor to William L. Rutledge, executive vice president, Bank Supervision Group…. […]
Read more...Note that Credit Suisse has lowered its price projections to $60 for 2009. The main reason for the lower price expectation is much worse than consensus forecasts for GDP growth, and with it, increases in oil and gas demand, from China. Click to enlarge (hat tip reader Michael):
Read more...A report in the Wall Street Journal today focuses on how even the affluent are reining in their spending, but what I found most intriguing was that the well-cultivated American habit of shopping as self validation appears to be undergoing a sea change. From the Wall Street Journal: The twin currents of an economic downturn […]
Read more...Despite China’s seeming economic might, it was only a few years ago that the hidden losses in among its banks were a frequent subject of discussion in the Western press. Indeed, in 2006, Ernst & Young hastily withdrew a detailed report that estimated that bad debt losses among Chinese banks were well above prevailing assumptions, […]
Read more...World without Frogs: Combined Threats May Croak Amphibians Scientific American Wine And Violin Funds Fall On Hard Times Joe Weisenthal, Clusterstock Nobel Winner Aumann Says Bernanke, Paulson Steps `Not Smart’ Bloomberg HBOS and RBS to reveal massive asset writedowns Independent Inflation punctures deflation fears Krishna Guha, Financial Times. The inflationistas have the upper hand for […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal provides yet another indicator of strained consumer budgets. More and more are having trouble paying their utility bills, precisely when the service providers are getting tougher about collections: Utilities are becoming more aggressive about collecting money from delinquent customers, leading to a surge in service shutdowns just as economic woes are […]
Read more...A story by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Michael de la Merced, “Debt Linked to Huge Buyouts Is Tightening the Economic Vise,” covers the fact that private equity deals, which as a matter of course feature high leverage, are starting to hit the wall as the economy sours. This is hardly surprising; it’s happened in past […]
Read more...We have been writing for a few weeks that the credit crisis had engulfed letters of credit, a crucial instrument in international trade, particularly of commodities (ex oil) and other raw materials. With banks hesitating to extend credit to each other much beyond overnight (finally changing only by virtue of massive liquidity measures and recapitalizations), […]
Read more...From the Daily Mail (hat tip Jesse): Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses – despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out. The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday. Each of the firm’s 443 partners is […]
Read more...Australia: No residency for boy with Down syndrome PhysOrg. Based on my experience with the Australian immigration service, I am not the slightest bit surprised. Politics Before and After a Crash, Depression Ben Bitroff If we only had a financial system… Steve Waldman US businesses ask Congress for relief on pensions Reuters (hat tip The […]
Read more...We have noted that Treasuries (and the dollar) are the remaining bubbles, although some doubts are starting to surface on the Treasury front. Paul Amery at Prudent Bear gives a good recap: The tectonic plates underlying the whole superstructure of debt have started to shift. On the surface nothing remarkable is happening – the 30 […]
Read more...The consumer credit retrenchment is coming even faster and harder than many anticipated. Big box retailers look likely to get coal in their stockings for Christmas as reduced consumer credit limits cut directly into sales. From Bloomberg: Home Depot Inc., Sears Holdings Corp. and other retailers may lose as much as 8 percent of their […]
Read more...Reader Michael appeared to be on a mission on Saturday and sent quite a few links on trade/shipping related matters. They were remarkably consistent in pointing to simply dreadful conditions and no expectation of near-term improvement. Indeed, further deterioration seems entirely possible. From Lloyd’s List: Freight rates in the Asia-Europe trades have crashed to record […]
Read more...I am leery of formulaic approaches to investing and this New York Times article confirmed my prejudices. Conventional wisdown says forget market timing (you are bound to get it wrong and lose out). However, today Mark Hulbert advocates an anti-market-timing strategy: go into cash when markets become volatile. But that seems as difficult to execute […]
Read more...In a move the stock market greeted with considerable cheer, JP Morgan announced that it was widening its program to modify mortgages. From the New York Times: JPMorgan Chase became the latest big bank to pledge to cut monthly payments, by lowering interest rates and temporarily reducing loan balances for as many as 400,000 homeowners. […]
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