What is going on? We noted on June 12 that the World Bank has lowered its growth forecast for 2009 from a negative 1.7% to close to negative 3%. World Bank Group President announced this prior to the G8 meeting and stressed the global contraction would have particularly grim consequences for poor countries. Today we […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of the site Credit Writedowns. During the last generation, the economics profession has veered toward a ‘science’ model of economics and finance. The intellectual underpinnings for this development began with the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) and has continued in no small measure due to what is often termed ‘University of Chicago […]
Read more...Are we seeing a rerun of early 2008 in diminished form, as least as far as oil prices are concerned? Reader Michael sent along an article by Dan Dicker that contends that oil prices are well ahead of their fundamentals, and that, as before, the oil bulls are taking considerable cheer from Goldman’s boosterism. A […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of the site Credit Writedowns. Hi everyone. I will be cross-posting a lot more this week as Yves is out on holiday. I want to start things off with a video that outlines a bear market rally point of view that is very much consistent with my market view (For more, […]
Read more...Submitted by Edward Harrison of the site Credit Writedowns. The data for personal consumption came out yesterday. However, I have not had a chance to look at the data and write a post until now. What I see right now is not good for a sustainable recovery. Let me tell you why and how this […]
Read more...To be perfectly clear (as one discredited President was fond of saying), It would appear that the Treasury has a pretty considerable supply problem that is starting to hit now. Longer dated bonds slid in a serious way late last week and had another bad day today (although the 2 year action went well). And […]
Read more...The TARP elicited a firestorm of criticism at its inception, and at various points of its short existence, particularly the repeated injections into “too big to fail” Citigroup and Bank of America, plus the charade of Paulson forcing TARP funds onto banks who were eager to take them once the terms were revealed. Now, however, […]
Read more...This post is from reader Gonzalo Lira. Although I beg to differ with him on a couple of his observations, it’s certainly colorful and thought provoking. I give my quibbles at the end. Insofar as this burgeoning Millennial Depression goes, I’ve noticed there are two sorts of people: Ones such as myself, obsessively following every […]
Read more...Despite quite a few warnings, the stock market rally continues to grind upwards. Although past is not always prologue, this upswing has not featured a new leadership group, as enduring bull markets normally do, nor has it reached the crushing valuation lows (PEs of 5-8 versus roughly 11 in early March), Moreover, despite the mythology […]
Read more...Frank Veneroso is skeptical that a downturn of this magnitude could be nearing an end as soon as the markets seem to believe. He parses the data and investor psychology. Another useful take comes at the Financial Times, where John Authers interviews bear market expert Russell Napier. Opt Publish at Scribd or explore others:
Read more...The WHO has designated swine flu an “imminent” pandemic, and raised its alert to a level 5 out of a possible 6. The World Bank guesstimates the cost of a severe pandemic at 4.8% of world GDP (yikes!). Yet the US had a very nice day for equity investors yesterday, and the Japanese stockmarket is […]
Read more...As readers probably know all too well, we are in the middle of another period of eroding confidence, frazzled nerves, and risk aversion. Equities have taken a tumble, with losses on the S&P today flirting with 4% after a 4.5% fall last week. Bloomberg reports that traders are increasingly looking to buy longer term downside […]
Read more...Economy could begin to recover in April, claims Gordon Brown Telegraph. Subhead: “The economy could begin to recover as early as April 2, Gordon Brown has signaled.” If by “recover” one means “temporarily looks as if it is no longer getting worse,” even I might agree that is possible. From Merrill Lynch’s Fund Manager Survey […]
Read more...I am the first to say that I do not understand the whims of the market, but today we saw a pretty schizophrenic display. Attention in the US focused on the Fed’s Open Market Committee statement. Earlier this week, not much was expected, since the Fed is somewhat constrained by fact that the Obama team […]
Read more...The 30 year Treasury bond has fallen from roughly 140 to its current level of 125-ish, so absent an intensification of deflation worries, one might surmise that at least some of the air has come out of the Treasury bond bubble. One might also take the view that the Chinese played this one astutely (or […]
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