Bloomberg.com – Angry Bart Takes His Parting Shot After almost 30 years in Washington, Bart Chilton will soon be taking his leave. For the past 6 1/2 years, he has been an outspoken member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of the financial industry’s most important regulators. Chilton leaves behind a sobering message: As… Continue reading Angry Bart
<Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> USA Today – First-class stamps to cost 49 cents as of Jan. 26 Mailing a letter is about to get a little more expensive. Regulators on Tuesday approved a temporary price hike of 3 cents for a first-class stamp, bringing the charge to… Continue reading The Cost Of Stamps
The Wall Street Journal – Notre Dame Endowment Recruits Investment Staff From Among Alumni In an unusual arrangement, all 17 investment staff members are graduates of Notre Dame, and all say they are obsessed with their alma mater. Many of them pray together at Masses and play on an intramural basketball team called Options Without… Continue reading Notre Dame
Zero Hedge (blog) – Bloomberg TV Anchor’s Bitcoin Stolen On Primetime TV Over the past two weeks, Bloomberg anchor Matt Miller has been on a crusade to popularize Bitcoin, which intuitively makes sense: having risen ten-fold in the past year, the mainstream financial media is now paying attention and furthermore, is providing its audience the… Continue reading Your Cyber Lesson Of The Day … Do NOT Show Your QR Code On HD TV!!
The New York Times – In Familiar Refrain, Prices Rose Again A fanciful splurge over the holidays will cost more than ever this year, at least for those who take their gift cues from the popular holiday classic “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” An improving economy has driven the cost for one round of the… Continue reading Inflation In The 12 Days Of Christmas
The Financial Times – Contrarian investors hope for better times in 2014 “Contrarian strategies have had one of the worst ever years,” says Beata Manthey, global equities strategist at Citi. “While simple contrarian strategies often perform very well at big macro turning points, they tend to underperform the rest of the time. An extension of… Continue reading Contrarian Investors Have A Horrible Year
The Financial Times – China cash crunch symbolises central bank policy quandary China’s financial markets are under pressure for the second time this year. Interbank rates and bond yields have been rising steadily for several weeks and spiked recently when the People’s Bank of China abstained from accommodating seasonal demand for cash. The PBoC then… Continue reading China
The Wall Street Journal – High Cost of Low Prices for the Fed The Federal Reserve has two things on its wish list for 2014: A better job market and more inflation. It looks likely that it will get the first. The second is less certain. That inflation has been so low this year is… Continue reading The Federal Reserve’s Wishlist: Inflation
Comment As we leave 2013 they are no more stock market bears. The chart below shows the percentage of newsletter writers that are bearish. The latest reading of 14.3% is the lowest reading since March 1987 (26+ years). <Click on chart for larger image> The next chart shows the percentage of newsletters writers that are… Continue reading No More Bears
Bloomberg.com – Budget Resolves Some U.S. Fiscal Woes With Spending Fights Ahead Lawmakers promised their budget deal would mark an end to Washington’s endless cycle of fiscal showdowns. There’s one step left: writing an encyclopedic spending bill funding every agency in the government, even the ones they don’t like. Congress has less than a month… Continue reading The Budget Deal
The Financial Times – US corporate bonds rally on Fed taper High quality US corporate bonds have rallied to their best levels versus Treasury yields in two years in the wake of the decision by the Federal Reserve to taper its quantitative easing policy. The performance of credit markets reflects the positive reaction seen in… Continue reading Corporate Bonds Rally