<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Worker Pay Stagnates Amid Meager Productivity Gains Output indicator suggests labor-market slack remains despite low unemployment rate Compensation growth for American workers is stuck in neutral, suggesting the labor market has more slack than the relatively low unemployment rate suggests. A gauge of compensation… Continue reading Rising Productivity
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg Business – A Bunch of Hedge Funds Got Burned by Valeant With the second highest hedge-fund ownership of any company in America behind Allergan Plc, there’s been plenty of pain to go around. Twenty-two different institutional investors, including Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management and Paulson & Co., owned… Continue reading Equity Hedge Funds Take A Hit
Bloomberg.com – Swap Spreads Have Fallen and They Can’t Get Up Something curious is happening in an esoteric corner of the U.S. rates market. Swap spreads – a proxy for credit spreads – have turned negative. This is a relatively rare occurrence in the market given that swap spreads usually involve a premium over U.S.… Continue reading Swap Spreads
MarketWatch.com – Gundlach says the S&P 500 can’t handle a December rate rise “The Fed should not raise rates in December. You shouldn’t have to make a case for the Fed to hike; the case should already be made,” he said, as odds for a rate rise in December are up to about 58%. Gundlach… Continue reading Gundlach Speaks
Venture Beat – Facebook is now a $300 billion company The largest social network ever created started trading today worth $306 billion by market cap. Let’s put that into context: Facebook, a company designed to sell ads against the every whim of its 1.55 billion users, is now nearly half the size (44 percent) of… Continue reading The Five Companies That Control The Internet Economy
Real Time Economics – Deflation Risks May Warrant Radical New Central-Bank Thinking, the IMF’s Chief Economist Says The Bank of Japan and other central banks around the world may need to try radical new easy-money policies to stave off the rising specter of deflation and revive sickly economic prospects, the International Monetary Fund’s new chief… Continue reading Fear Of Global Deflation
None Today
Comment Today at 9 AM CT (10:00 AM ET, 7:00 AM PT, and 15:00 GMT), Bianco Research, in conjunction with Arbor Research & Trading, will be hosting a webcast/teleconference moderated by Jim Bianco. Last week’s FOMC statement opened the door to a rate hike in December. Will it happen? And if so, what will the… Continue reading Will The Fed Hike? What Will The Market’s Reaction Be?
Reuters – Fed would consider negative rates if economy soured: Yellen The Federal Reserve would consider pushing interest rates below zero if the U.S. economy took a serious turn for the worse, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Wednesday. “Potentially anything – including negative interest rates – would be on the table. But we would… Continue reading Yellen Speaks On Negative Rates
Comment Jim Bianco was on CNBC yesterday discussing the Federal Reserve. To view the interview, click on the image above. To view any of our recent interviews, click here. <Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Citi: Janet Yellen Has Violated “One of the Cardinal Rules” of Economists Janet Yellen, Stanley Fischer, and William… Continue reading Yellen vs. The Markets
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Michael Spence And Kevin Warsh: A Little Humility, Please, Mr. Summers The former Treasury secretary launches a misguided defense of quantitative easing. In a recent op-ed for this newspaper, we proffered an explanation for a phenomenon that most macroeconomic models cannot adequately explain: Why… Continue reading Spence/Warsh vs. Summers
The Wall Street Journal – Bill Introduced to Require Hedge Funds to Disclose Holdings More Frequently A bill requiring hedge funds to disclose their holdings more frequently was introduced in Congress on Wednesday, a move that if signed into law would represent a seismic change for the hedge-fund industry. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, a Democrat from… Continue reading Hedge Fund Regulation