<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Large Money Managers Suffer Bruising Quarter Profit at Franklin Resources falls sharply as assets, fees drop Large money managers were bruised in the third quarter by market declines and investor outflows, the latest sign of the ills afflicting the U.S. mutual-fund industry. A round… Continue reading Another Bad Quarter For Active Management
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Economist – Peak profits: The age of the torporation Big listed firms’ earnings have hit a wall of deflation and stagnation Alas, corporate sloth is a far deeper and more widespread problem than that. Consider that half of big listed American firms now have shrinking profits (see chart… Continue reading Peak Profits?
<Click on graphic for larger image> Real Time Economics – An Enduring Mystery of the ‘Gig Economy’: Why Are So Few People Self-Employed? The Pew Research Center has a new report today that looks at self-employment in the U.S. and its role in creating jobs. But the data in the report exposes one of the… Continue reading How The Gig Economy Affects Employment
The Financial Times – Gillan Tett: How humans can wrest control of the markets back from computers Flash crashes affect even commodities markets hitherto considered dull such as corn Investors have had plenty of reasons to worry about oil prices this year. Now there is another: Timothy Massad, chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading… Continue reading Reverse Terminator – The Rise Of The Humans
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USA Today – Earnings season stock reaction all about expectations Crappy corporate earnings don’t have to add up to a really lousy stock market. Sure, Wall Street analysts are forecasting profit growth to contract in the third-quarter for the first time since 2009. But how the stock market reacts to corporate earnings reports is more… Continue reading A Look At Q3 Earnings
<Click on graphic for larger image> Comment In the graphic above, the T-bill maturing on November 12 is down from 0.15% yesterday to 0.07% today. As we discussed on Friday and again Monday, this T-bill yield curve “kink” is a measure of the likelihood of a default. At 0.07% the probability of default is very… Continue reading More On The Debt Ceiling
<Click on chart for larger image> Peterson Institute for International Economics – The Fed’s Confusion over Interest Rates Ben Bernanke, in his recently published memoirs, says that monetary policy is 98 percent communication and 2 percent action. During his tenure as a central banker he scrupulously followed this principle. Shortly after being named governor of… Continue reading The Fed’s Communication Problem
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg.com – China Finds More Discreet Ways to Support the Yuan After August shock devaluation, central bank shifts tactics Strategy shifts optics on drop in world’s largest reserves Just because China is burning through its reported foreign-exchange reserves more slowly doesn’t mean it’s losing its commitment to support the… Continue reading China Tries To Support The Yuan
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – What We Know About the 92 Million Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force This sounds like a shocking statistic: 92 million Americans don’t work but also aren’t considered unemployed by the Labor Department. The Labor Department only classifies people as unemployed if they… Continue reading Understanding The Labor Force Decline
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg Business – Ten-Year Treasuries Dearest in Two Years as Fed Liftoff Clouded Ten-year Treasuries are the most expensive relative to other maturities in more than two years as a lack of clarity over the timing of the Federal Reserve’s first interest-rate increase since 2006 drives investors to the… Continue reading Ten-Year Treasuries Remain Near 2%
Bloomberg.com – Saudis Risk Draining Financial Assets in 5 Years, IMF Says Estimate based on current fiscal policies amid oil’s slump Saudi authorities are already planning spending cuts Saudi Arabia may run out of financial assets needed to support spending within five years if the government maintains current policies, the International Monetary Fund said, underscoring… Continue reading Saudi Arabia