The Financial Times – Junk bond investors dig deep for value Just as hopeful prospectors venture back to abandoned gold mines in California, so fund managers are engaged in a similar quest to find overlooked nuggets in the global junk bond market. Junk bonds, which are sold by companies with more fragile balance sheets and… Continue reading Junk Bonds
American Enterprise Institute – Now is the time to preempt deflation Many underestimate the danger of self-reinforcing deflation—that once it appears, it tends to accelerate. This complacency may be partly due to Japan’s experience in which deflation appeared and persisted but never dropped much below a 1.5 percent pace. That may be because the Bank… Continue reading Preparing For Deflation
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Tim Hartford: Why long-term unemployment matters ‘Research shows that employers ignore people who have been out of work for more than six months’ As long as there is a recovery, why does this matter? A clue emerges when we look at two statistical relationships that… Continue reading Long-Term Unemployment
The Financial Times – Mario Draghi’s ‘whatever it takes’ may not be enough for the euro The eurozone faces problems that are beyond the control of the president of the ECB Both Italy and France are increasingly chafing at the budgetary constraints imposed on them from Brussels, and policed from Berlin. Mr Renzi argues that… Continue reading The Problems In Europe
The Wall Street Journal – Banks Given Two Extra Years to Fully Comply With Volcker Rule Fed Stopped Short of Granting Exception Sought by the Industry The Federal Reserve said Monday it will give banks two years of extra time to conform certain debt holdings with the Volcker rule, but stopped short of granting an… Continue reading Banks Given More Time To Prep For The Volker Rule
The New York Times – Japan’s Central Bank Holds Off More Stimulus The Bank of Japan stuck to its existing monetary policy on Tuesday, confident that it did not need further stimulus to beat chronic deflation even as a sales tax increase clouds the outlook for Japan, the world’s third-largest economy. The Bank of Japan,… Continue reading Japan
MarketWatch.com – Jeff Reeves: Housing pain could halt stocks’ gain Opinion: Weaker demand for real estate could spread to other asset classes The S&P 500’s outsized gain of 30%-plus last year certainly can’t be repeated. And if the first quarter is any indication, not many investors will make much money by owning the benchmark index.… Continue reading Will Housing Cause The Stock Market To Fall?
MoneyBeat – China More Vulnerable to Corporate Defaults, S&P Says Chinese companies are less indebted than their Japanese counterparts, but the greater number of loss-making firms makes the country more vulnerable to corporate defaults, according to a Standard & Poor’s report. The research comes at a time of growing fears over the rapid rise of… Continue reading China
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Rutherford Moves From Cornfield Crisis Maven to U.S. Debt Funder Matthew Rutherford played a key role as the Treasury navigated the global financial crisis, the first downgrade of U.S. government securities and a record budget deficit. What lies ahead for him will be much subtler. The 35-year-old… Continue reading Average Maturity Of U.S. Debt
Comment On March 28, Jim Bianco talked with Jim Puplava of the Financial Sense Newshour. The audio is now available for those without a subscription here: Financial Sense Newshour, March 28, 2014
<Click on chart for larger image> MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – You May Want to Avert Your Eyes This Earnings Season Earnings season is here. You may want to avert your eyes. Alcoa reports first-quarter earnings on Tuesday, and while no longer a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the company’s earnings still mark the… Continue reading Earnings Season Starts Tomorrow