FiveThirtyEight (blog) – Amir Sufi and Atif Mian: Why the Housing Bubble Tanked the Economy And the Tech Bubble Didn’t In 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, destroying $6.2 trillion in household wealth over the next two years. Five years later, the housing market crashed, and from 2007 to 2009, the value of real estate owned… Continue reading Why The Bursting Of The Tech Bubble Did Not Crash The Economy
The Financial Times – Andrew Bolger: Investors lift cash holdings to two-year highs Investors have increased their holdings of cash to the highest levels in nearly two years and scaled back risk-taking, amid fears of geopolitical instability and questions about the strength of the global economic recovery, says the latest BofA Merrill Lynch fund manager… Continue reading Worried Investors
Factset – Earnings Insight for May 9, 2014 Blended Earnings Growth: 2.2% The blended earnings growth rate for Q1 2014 is 2.2%. Seven sectors have reported or are reporting higher earnings relative to a year ago, led by the Telecom Services and Utilities sectors. Three sectors have reported or are reporting lower earnings relative to… Continue reading Earnings Update – What Is The Q1 Growth Rate?
Business Insider – The Average Stock Is In A Bear Market Most market-watchers prefer the S&P 500 over the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But the fact that the S&P 500 is down just 1% from its all-time high of 1,897 belies the fact that many stocks in the index and in the market as a… Continue reading Measuring A Bear Market
<Click on chart for larger image> Yahoo Finance – What kills bull markets? I spent some time earlier this week at the iShares global macro debate. Jonathan Golub, Chief U.S Market Strategist at RBC Capital Markets opened the show as the equity bull and opposite him, playing the bear, was David Bianco from Deutsche Bank.… Continue reading Timing The End Of The Bull Market
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Federal Reserve’s Reverse Repos Set to Become Permanent, Says Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart Says Experiment Has Been a Success An experimental monetary policy tool that lets banks and financial firms place cash with the Federal Reserve in exchange for an overnight loan of… Continue reading The Fed’s Reverse Repo Facility
The Financial Times – Demand for long-dated Treasuries defies bearish signals The big investing story this year is that the US “long” bond is back – and in a big way…Bond investors who bought short-dated Treasuries at the start of the year are trying to work out why the 30-year yield, which moves inversely to… Continue reading Bond Bears
Bloomberg.com – Kuroda Fails to Sway Analysts Forecasting Easing in ’14 Governor Haruhiko Kuroda is failing to convince economists that the Bank of Japan has done enough to spur 2 percent inflation, with most sticking to forecasts for added easing by the year end, a survey showed. Nearly all economists surveyed by Bloomberg News said… Continue reading Searching For More Stimulus
The Wall Street Journal – Tech Stocks Are Still ‘Too Silly’ for Some Valuations of Young Tech Companies Remain Sky-High Young technology-company stocks fell out of favor in the blink of an eye. But their valuations remain sky-high and many investors say they have a lot more room to decline before bouncing back. … The… Continue reading Tech Valuation
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Wake Up, Bond Traders: Market Is a Volatility-Free Bore U.S. government-debt dealers just had the slowest April since 2010 even though the market has ballooned by about 37 percent since then, Federal Reserve data show. Prices are barely budging, with volatility plunging toward record lows. The debt… Continue reading Bond Market Volatility
The Financial Times – Edward Luce: Hedge fund titans are testing the quality of US democracy If branches of government bow to big business, public policy will be decided by the highest bidder In 2008, the US government did “whatever it takes” to save the world economy from a rerun of the 1930s. Bailing out… Continue reading Fannie & Freddie