The Financial Times – Facebook market value tops $200bn Facebook’s market capitalisation topped $200bn for the first time on Monday, beating rival Google in the time it took since going public to reach the symbolic figure. As well as outstripping the valuation of much older technology companies including IBM, Intel and Oracle, the social network… Continue reading Facebook Crosses $200 Billion In Market Cap
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The Wall Street Journal – WSJ’s Hilsenrath: Jobs Report Leaves Fed in No Hurry To Alter Views on Slack or Rates Friday’s mixed jobs report relieves pressure on the Federal Reserve to significantly alter its policy stance at its meeting later this month. When Fed officials said in their July policy statement that they saw… Continue reading More On Last Week’s Jobs Report
Bloomberg.com – You Missed $1 Trillion Return Agreeing With Fed Naysayers If you agreed with all the academics, billionaires and politicians who denounced Federal Reserve monetary policy since the financial crisis, you missed $1 trillion of investment returns from buying and holding U.S. Treasuries. That’s how much the government bonds have earned for investors since… Continue reading Measuring The Bond Bears’ Losses
CNBC – Actually, this jobs report holds water, pro says Economists seemingly rallied together for a uniformed response to the August employment report released Friday: The jobs data runs contrary to recent economic indicators and should be taken with a grain of salt, the experts told CNBC on Friday. To one stock market observer, though,… Continue reading We Believe The Payroll Report
The Wall Street Journal – David Malpass: The Fed Is Looking Like a Sovereign Wealth Fund The Federal Reserve recently made clear it is planning to maintain its enormous balance sheet—roughly $4.5 trillion in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities—for many years, while keeping interest rates near zero at least into 2015. Far from being neutral or… Continue reading Winding Down The Fed’s Portfolio
Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Fed’s Plosser: Fed Should Raise Rates ‘Sooner Rather Than Later’ Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia leader Charles Plosser said Saturday the U.S. central bank will likely need to raise rates “sooner rather than later” to keep the economy running smoothly. “I am not suggesting that rates should necessarily be… Continue reading FOMC Members’ Differing Opinions
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Bull Market’s Stamina on Display With many investors wondering just how much longer stocks can keep rallying, one metric suggests the bull market isn’t likely to slow anytime soon. Stocks are rising and records are toppling as the rally only seems to be gaining momentum. The S&P 500 closed Friday at… Continue reading Stocks’ Slow & Steady Advance
The Wall Street Journal – U.S. Debt Gets a Boost From Abroad Stepped-up central-bank intervention in Europe is bolstering the appeal of U.S. Treasury debt among a surprising crowd: bargain hunters. Last week the European Central Bank cut interest rates and set plans to buy European bonds sold by the private sector, aiming to prop… Continue reading U.S. Debt vs. European Debt
The Financial Times – How to see into the future Irving Fisher was once the most famous economist in the world. Some would say he was the greatest economist who ever lived. “Anywhere from a decade to two generations ahead of his time,” opined the first Nobel laureate economist Ragnar Frisch, in the late 1940s,… Continue reading Economic Forecasting
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – With a Bitcoin ETF, Risk Isn’t Virtual Talk about a bit of risk: Meet the bitcoin funds. Some wealthy investors are already buying into a trust that tracks the average dollar price of the virtual currency. And the firm behind that trust is racing… Continue reading Bitcoin ETFs