The Guardian (UK) – Global stocks in ‘panic mode’ as Chinese factory slump drags on markets Asia Pacific markets mimic heavy selling in US and Europe as latest data adds to expectations that Beijing will have to give its spluttering economy another boost The FTSE 100 has hit its lowest level this year after further… Continue reading Global Stock Market Panic
MarketWatch – Caroline Baum: The ‘Great Moderation’ yielded some not-so-great results The Fed tamed inflation, but unleashed asset bubbles They call it the “Great Moderation”: the period beginning in the early 1980s when central bankers found religion, whipped inflation and gained the credibility to ensure that a temporary spike in oil prices, for example, did… Continue reading Looking Back At The Great Moderation
MoneyBeat – Wachtell Lipton Sees Merits of Ditching Quarterly Reports Powerhouse Wall Street law firm Wachtell Lipton on Tuesday voiced its support for abandoning quarterly corporate earnings reports. “We may still achieve a capitalism in which long-term, responsible investors champion boards and management teams that resist pressures to maximize short-term stock prices at the expense… Continue reading Should The Quarterly Earnings Report Go Away?
The Financial Times – Gillan Tett: Productivity paradox deepens Fed’s rate-rise dilemma Slowdown flies in the face of popular belief that the western world is undergoing a technology boom Brace yourself to hear the phrase “data dependent” — a lot — over the next month. With this week’s release of the US Federal Reserve minutes… Continue reading Productivity
None Today
The Federal Reserve – July 28-29 FOMC Minutes The staff next summarized some of the recent steps the System had taken to prepare further for the process of normalization of monetary policy. The staff also proposed that future changes in the FOMC’s target federal funds rate range as well as associated changes in related administered… Continue reading The FOMC Minutes
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg.com – So Long September: Bond Traders Defer Their Date With the Fed So much for September. Traders gearing up for the Federal Reserve to raise interest-rates next month reversed course Wednesday after minutes from the central bank’s July meeting showed policy makers were still waffling on whether the… Continue reading Fed Funds Futures In The Wake Of The Minutes
<Click on chart for larger image> Vox – New study argues hedge funds are an even worse scam than we thought Studies have shown, over and over again, that hedge funds as a class provide investors with worse returns than simple passive investment strategies. But a new study by Mikhail Tupitsyn and Paul Lajbcygier of… Continue reading Hedge Funds
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Greg Ip: Why China’s Yuan ‘Reform’ Merits Skepticism Both Japan and the European Central Bank used aggressive monetary stimulus in recent years to boost their economies and in the process send their exchange rates down sharply. China last week directly engineered a much more… Continue reading The Yuan Devaluation
<Click on graphic for larger image> Liberty Street Economics (NY Fed Blog) – High-Frequency Cross-Market Trading in U.S. Treasury Markets In this post, we examine the pattern of trading activity in these instruments and document the substantial increase in cross-market trading (simultaneous order placement and execution in multiple markets) in recent years, highlighting the impact… Continue reading Part 3 Of The Fed’s Liquidity Series
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Gary Shilling: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to $80 Oil In February, I predicted that crude oil prices would drop to $10 to $20 a barrel. At the time, the price of West Texas Intermediate was $54, down from $74 in November, when OPEC decided… Continue reading Crude Oil
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Clock is ticking on US equity correction By any measure, this has been some bull market for US stocks. Nothing illustrates this better than the fact that 46 months have elapsed since the S&P 500 experienced a typical drop of 10 per cent from a… Continue reading Overdue For A True Stock Correction?