ScottSkyrm.com – The Fed’s Toolbox The main “driver” of the recent loose monetary policy was the Quantitative Easing (QE) purchases, that is, putting massive amounts of cash into the market by purchasing government securities. Now, picture that it’s time drain that liquidity. The Fed needs a tool, like a phillips head screwdriver to tighten the… Continue reading The Fed Needs To Pick The Right Tool For The Job
<Click on chart for larger image> MarketWatch.com – What is holding back gold? I wonder how many people realize just how weak the average stock has been this year. And what exactly that has to do with gold. The selective headlines of the market hitting new all-time highs certainly is easy to believe. The S&P… Continue reading Gold Continues To Fall
The Financial Times – European banks: Still unstable The search for yield has helped fund institutions on the eurozone periphery but concerns remain “We haven’t seen this level of sustained investment in credit markets since before the financial crisis, which is helping push yields to new lows,” says Chris Tuffey, head of debt syndicate at… Continue reading Searching For Yield
The Financial Times – Sliced and diced debt deals make roaring comeback In early June 2009, the world’s securitisation bankers congregated at a London hotel on Edgware Road, not far from the prison cells at Paddington Green police station. It was a location symbolic of the state of the securitisation industry in the aftermath of… Continue reading Asset-Backed Securities Back In Vogue
Real Times Economics – Interest Rates at Zero May Link Uncertainty with Slower U.S. Growth: Dallas Fed Paper Uncertainty about the direction of the U.S. economy has been associated in recent years with weaker growth, at least in part because the Federal Reserve has kept short-term interest rates pinned near zero, argues new research from… Continue reading Low Rates and Slow Growth
Reuters – Fed may shun global risk rules banks spent billions to meet The Federal Reserve may scrap international measures aimed at assessing bank health in favor of imposing its own rules, frustrating bankers who have spent billions of dollars retooling their books to meet global standards. Fed officials are concerned that parts of a… Continue reading Basel III
The Wall Street Journal – Global Inflation Picks Up in April Consumer prices rose at a more rapid pace across the world’s largest economies in April, easing concerns that too little inflation could derail the global economy’s weak recovery. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Wednesday said the annual rate of inflation… Continue reading Global Inflation On The Rise
The Financial Times – Richard Madigan: Rate rises will come despite lower bond yields US bond market is not signalling a collapse in US growth At the beginning of the year, for the first time in a long while, we had a consensus view about markets. Over the past few months somehow we have become… Continue reading Still Bearish On Interest Rates
The Financial Times – Economists take aim at ISM after corrections For Treasury and equity traders, the swing in prices has provided some volatility at a time when many have mourned the absence of sharp market fluctuations, US markets editor Michael Mackenzie writes. The 10-year Treasury yield declined on the first weaker than expected ISM… Continue reading Will The Real ISM Please Stand Up?
The Telegraph (UK) – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Global watchdogs rattled by lack of fear in the markets Today’s warnings feels very like those of the ECB’s Jean-Claude Trichet at Davos in January 2007 when he told investors to brace for trouble. He said risk spreads had been compressed to dangerously low levels, though the boom was… Continue reading No Volatility
Bloomberg – Mohamed A. El-Erian: How Bold Can the ECB Be? The European Central Bank is expected to make news Thursday by announcing a set of unconventional measures aimed at enhancing the prospects of a healthy economic recovery. Some even expect a replay of the high drama of two years ago, when the central bank… Continue reading What Will The ECB Do This Week?