The Economist – Sound the retreat Profits in America may have peaked for this cycle ARE corporate profits at last running out of steam? The lead-up to the first-quarter results season on Wall Street was marked by an unusually large number of profit warnings, such as that from Chevron, an oil group. According to Morgan… Continue reading Earnings Update
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – China’s Central Bank Looks for Better Monetary-Measuring Tools hree years after China’s central bank unveiled a new measure to calculate the amount of credit in the economy, it may be going back to the drawing board. Pan Gongsheng, a vice governor at the People’s… Continue reading The Dollar Continues It Rally Against The Yuan
The Financial Times – Junk bond fever hits new high as records break Supported by ultra-easy monetary policies by major central banks and investors’ hunger for yield, global corporations have sold $156bn of junk bonds so far this year – nine times the amount sold in the same period of 2008, before the Federal Reserve… Continue reading More On Junk Bond Issuance
Value Walk – Federal Reserve Couldn’t Pass A Stress Test, Says Former Fed Economist Former Fed economist compares QE to the S&L crisis and says that it is similarly exposed to rising interest rates As the most systemically important financial institution in the country, it was only a matter of time before someone asked the… Continue reading If The Fed Were A Bank
The Financial Times – Low Treasury yields frustrate bond bears Case for holding longer term bonds remains firmly in place Today, many in the bond market are once more shaking their heads when they see the 10-year note yielding 2.68 per cent, down from 3 per cent at the start of January. Given that bond… Continue reading Frustrated Bond Bears
The New York Times – S.&P., Citing Capital Flight, Cuts Its Rating on Russia Russia’s credit rating was cut on Friday by Standard & Poor’s to just one notch above “junk” status amid a growing push by Western nations to step up sanctions against President Vladimir V. Putin’s government as a result of the crisis… Continue reading Russia Gets Downgraded
The Financial Times – Gillian Tett: American state-backed mortgages are a $5tn millstone The problem with quick crisis-fighting ‘fixes’ is they sow the seeds of the next crisis A decade ago about 40 per cent of new US mortgages carried implicit government backing, since these loans were guaranteed by entities such as Fannie Mae and… Continue reading Dysfunctional Mortgage Market
MarketWatch – Mitchell Tucjman: Why David Einhorn is right about tech stocks David Einhorn, the hedge fund guru best known for shorting Lehman Brothers in 2007, is back at it, this time with tech stocks in his sights. There is a clear consensus that we are witnessing our second tech bubble in 15 years,” Einhorn’s… Continue reading A Tech Bubble?
Core Logic – Cash is All the Rage – A Closer Look at Condos Bought with Cash The chart above hones in on the share of condos purchased using cash by the largest 25 states by total sales. As of January 2014, Florida and Nevada have the highest cash share for condos across the country… Continue reading A Negative Look At Housing
The Economist – Banks and Commodities Trading: Sell signals Banks are scrambling to ditch their commodity-trading businesses THIN margins, tough regulations and worries about reputation make trading commodities look like a source of worries not profits for nervous bank bosses. Barclays, one of the biggest in the business, is the latest to head for the… Continue reading Trading Commodities
Real Time Economics – Senate Banking Committee to Vote on Fed Nominees on April 29 The Senate Banking Committee will vote next Tuesday on three of President Barack Obama‘s nominees for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, including Stanley Fischer, his choice for vice chairman. The committee will vote April 29, on the nominations of… Continue reading Getting Close on Stan Fischer