The Wall Street Journal – Junk-Bond Surge Fuels M&A Open lending markets have helped to feed the strong corporate appetite for mergers and acquisitions this year. As of last Thursday, junk-rated companies had borrowed $92.5 billion in the high-yield bond markets for acquisitions. That’s up 40% from the year-earlier period and the highest on record… Continue reading M&A Boom In Junk-Rated Companies
Bloomberg.com – There’s More to QE Than Krugman Thinks Yet Krugman thinks that the Neo-Fisherians are trying to deny the results of the macroeconomic acid test: [Now] we have the neo-Fisherite claim that everything we thought we knew about monetary policy is backwards, that low interest rates actually lead to lower inflation, not higher…The neo-Fisherites… Continue reading Krugman, QE And Neo-Fisherians
Bloomberg View – Housing Bust Wasn’t About the House In advanced economies, rising land values have been behind as much as 80 percent of the real-estate price gains since 1950. U.S. housing prices increased about 650 percent during the past four decades and most of that gain was due to rising value of land. One… Continue reading Rising Land Values
The Guardian – The return of the US dollar The resurgence of the US currency could be the first promising step in steering the world economy away from crisis The US dollar is on the move. In the last four months alone, it has soared by more than 7% compared with a basket of more… Continue reading The Soaring Dollar
Bloomberg Businessweek – The Central Banker Bubble Needs to Pop When the Fed becomes more visible, it attracts more attention—most of it not helpful. In some ways the bubble Rogoff describes is more dangerous than a stock bubble, because it threatens financial stability and possibly Fed independence. Richard Fisher, the hawkish president of the Federal… Continue reading Popping The Central Bank Bubble
Bloomberg.com – Bank Liquidity Keeping More Cash on Hand to Survive the Next Panic In September, U.S. regulators released their final version of the 30-day rule developed by the Basel Committee, a panel that brings together financial regulators from around the world. In October, Basel regulators finished drafting a related guideline aimed at making sure… Continue reading Bank Liquidity
The Financial Times – Andrew Smithers: The US is a huge hedge fund Hedge funds’ portfolios are often leveraged and they can be big winners or losers if this pays off. In this sense the US is also a hedge fund. In terms of its international assets, the US is long equities and short debt.… Continue reading The U.S. Is One Large Hedge Fund
None Today
Real Clear Markets – Robert Samuelson: Did the Fed’s QE Actually Help? The Federal Reserve has ended its roughly $3.7 trillion program of bond buying, leaving in its wake a host of hard questions. Did it strengthen the economic recovery? If so, by how much? What are the long-run effects? Should it be used again?… Continue reading Judging QE’s Effectiveness
The Wall Street Journal – Rivals Outdo Gross in Race For Bond Cash Investor’s New Firm Has Modest Haul Of the torrent of cash that left Pacific Investment Management Co. in the past six weeks, only a trickle appears to have followed Bill Gross to his new home. Since Mr. Gross joined Janus Capital Group… Continue reading Janus Inflows (Not Pimco Outflows)
The Wall Street Journal – China Opens Door Wider to Foreign Investors Stock-Trading Link Between Hong Kong and Shanghai to Start Next Week China will give investors much greater access to its stock market, a big step in Beijing’s efforts to lure foreign capital and part of attempts to overhaul its economy. The program allows… Continue reading China Lures Foreigners
MarketWatch – Alibaba’s ‘Single’s Day’ bigger than Black Friday China’s anti-Valentine’s Day has handily surpassed the U.S.’ Black Friday as the most lucrative online shopping day in the world, and it is well on its way to becoming the most profitable manufactured holiday in history. Alibaba Group , the largest e-commerce company in China, surpassed more… Continue reading China’s Single’s Day