The Wall Street Journal – Don’t Buy Excuses for Poor Readings Excuses, excuses. If only the world and the people in it would act the way that they do in economics textbooks. Then, fortune tellers would wind up eating a lot less crow. Take Tuesday’s surprisingly lousy reading of the Chicago Business Barometer: After dropping… Continue reading Explaining Away Bad Economic Data
<Click on chart for larger image> CNBC – Strong case for June rates liftoff, says Fed’s Lacker The Federal Reserve will have a “strong” case to hike U.S. interest rates in June, a hawkish Fed official said on Tuesday, dismissing recently weak economic data as transitory and perhaps due to unseasonable weather. Richmond Fed President… Continue reading Timing The First Rate Hike
The Wall Street Journal – Battered Oil Shows Signs of Life Oil bulls are back in the fight. The expansion in U.S. oil production, a major driver behind crude’s nine-month slide, is close to slowing, some investors and analysts say. That could spark a turnaround in prices that had tumbled as much as 59% since… Continue reading Oil Supply & Demand
<Click on chart for larger image> Reuters.com – Euro falls, set to post worst quarter ever; dollar best since 2008 The euro fell to a 10-day low against the dollar on Tuesday, putting it on track for its worst-ever quarter, as investors renewed bets the U.S. Federal Reserve would raise rates later this year while… Continue reading Everybody Hates The Euro
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – No Joke, U.S. Treasuries Tend to Rally in the Month of April Treasuries tend to rally in the month of April. U.S. government securities have advanced in the period every year from 2010 to 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. One theory for the gain is… Continue reading Treasury Seasonality
The Wall Street Journal – When Will Greece Run Out of Money? So, when will Greece run out of money? The truth is: Nobody knows. Even Greece. “The liquidity situation is fluid,” some senior Greek officials say. Other Greek policy makers say the piggy bank will be empty by mid-April. When are the next debt… Continue reading Key Dates In Greek Drama
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg Business – Central Bankers Cut Euro Reserve Holdings to 12-Year Low Central bankers cut their euro reserve holdings to a 12-year low last quarter, and there may be more to come. The shared currency’s portion of global holdings fell to 22.2 percent in the fourth quarter, the least… Continue reading World Currency Reserves
Bloomberg.com – Are Money Managers Lemmings? It was once widely believed that the rise of professional investors would make financial markets less prone to manias, panics and crashes. Lately, the opposite belief has begun to take hold…The main problem with asset managers, one learns from reading (or, in a couple of cases, skimming) these papers… Continue reading Are Asset Managers Making The Markets Less Stable?
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – William M. Issac: Fannie and Freddie May Need More Bailouts The federal policy to ‘sweep’ the housing giants’ profits sets them up for more trouble. The Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might… Continue reading Fannie & Freddie
<Click on graphic for larger image> Zero hedge – CNBC’s SquawkBox Has Lowest Nielsen Rating In Its History As the following update of CNBC’s perhaps most popular (if least watched, lagging even Mad Money) day breaking segment, SquawkBox, the show that features Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin just suffered its worst quarterly… Continue reading CNBC Viewership
<Click on chart for larger image> Reuters – Once-bullish fund managers start to capitulate on oil prices The capitulation of fund managers comes at a time when retail and professional investors are diverging when it comes to predicting the price of oil. Retail investors have been pouring billions into exchanged traded funds that track the… Continue reading Crude Oil Speculation Update