Reuters – Pimco rehires McCulley, this time as chief economist and public face Pimco said on Tuesday it has rehired Paul McCulley, who was previously a portfolio manager and the bond giant’s top analyst of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policies, in the latest management change after the departure of the firm’s chief executive Mohamed El-Erian… Continue reading McCulley’s Back
Five Thirty Eight Economics – Nate Silver: Be Skeptical of Both Piketty And His Skeptics Data never has a virgin birth. It can be tempting to assume that the information contained in a spreadsheet or a database is pure or clean or beyond reproach. But this is almost never the case. All data is collected… Continue reading More On Piketty’s Numbers
Zero Hedge – Here Is The Mystery, And Completely Indiscriminate, Buyer Of Stocks In The First Quarter According to the most recent CapitalIQ data, the single biggest buyer of stocks in the first quarter were none other than the companies of the S&P500 itself, which cumulatively repurchased a whopping $160 billion of their own stock… Continue reading Who Is Buying Stocks?
Real Time Economics – Fed Still Short of Employment, Inflation Goals, Lockhart Says The Federal Reserve must be patient before it considers raising interest rates even after the central bank winds down its bond-buying program and as the recovery picks up steam, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said Tuesday. Mr. Lockhart, speaking in Baton Rouge,… Continue reading The Federal Reserve Still Has Some Work To Do
Bloomberg.com – Fed’s Junk-Loan Caution Spurs Creative Accounting Alchemy Lenders are increasingly allowing junk-rated borrowers to adjust their earnings to make them look more creditworthy as U.S. regulators increase pressure on banks to refrain from underwriting too-risky deals. Such tweaks, which are permissible under more and more credit agreements, can help companies stay in compliance… Continue reading Creative Accounting For Junk-Rate Borrowers
The Financial Times – Martin Wolf: Disarm our doomsday machine A crisis-prone system calls for measures to minimise the damage in the event of the inevitable Capitalism is indeed crisis-prone and the US government was right to intervene during the crisis. These conclusions leave us in a desperate position, with our fates apparently attached to… Continue reading How Governments Must React To Crises
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: Former Fed Official Calls for Decisions on Rate Hike Mechanics in Coming Months Brian Sack, a top hedge fund economist and former senior Federal Reserve official, says the U.S. central bank should make some challenging decisions in the next few months about… Continue reading How The Fed Will Raise Rates
The Financial Post – David Rosenberg: What Mr. Bond is telling the market It’s akin to an exogenous positive shock to the economy, especially the rate-sensitive sectors (housing, autos, capital goods). It’s as if the Fed eased 50 basis points via the back end of the yield curve, just as Mr. Poloz managed to accomplish a… Continue reading Listening To The Bond Market
The Guardian (UK) – Thomas Piketty accuses Financial Times of dishonest criticism Author of bestselling economics book says paper is ridiculous to suggest his thesis on rising inequality is incorrect Thomas Piketty has accused the Financial Times of ridiculous and dishonest criticism of his economics book on inequality, which has become a publishing sensation. The… Continue reading Yet Another Economist Does Not Know How To Use Excel
Bloomberg – Bad Credit No Problem as Balance-Sheet Bombs Rally 94% Stocks with the weakest balance sheets have climbed more than 8 percent in 2014 and 94 percent since the end of 2011, generating almost twice the gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) over that period, according to compiled by Bloomberg and… Continue reading The Worst Stocks Perform The Best
<Click on chart for larger image> Money Beat (WSJ Blog) – Stocks Running in Place Over the past three months, the spread between the S&P 500’s intraday high and low is 4.8%, the narrowest trading range since October 2006, according to market-research firm Bespoke Investment Group. Since 1984, the S&P 500 has traded in a… Continue reading More on Low Volatility