The Financial Times – Lawrence Summers: Why stagnation might prove to be the new normal Is it possible that the US and other major global economies might not return to full employment and strong growth without the help of unconventional policy support? I raised that notion – the old idea of “secular stagnation” – recently… Continue reading Stagnation
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – ‘Tis the Season for a Rally Analysts have plenty of explanations for the recent stock-price sag, many centering on the prospect the Federal Reserve will trim stimulus as soon as this week. But there is one that few people have mentioned: Stocks usually do this in mid-December. A chart of average… Continue reading The Santa Claus Rally
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Plug This Into Your Taper-Meters: Deflation Heading into the great Fed debate of will they/won’t they next week, there’s a lot of rhetoric surrounding one of the Fed’s big mandates: supporting the labor market. There isn’t a lot of talk about the Fed’s other mandate: prices. Mainly that’s been because inflation… Continue reading Inflation: The Ignored Mandate
The Wall Street Journal – Profit Warnings Send a Message Never accuse Wall Street analysts of being negative Nellies. From buy recommendations to earnings forecasts, they routinely set the bar too high when predicting outcomes far in the future. With the passage of time, though, it usually is lowered enough to keep the good cheer… Continue reading Profit Guidance
The Wall Street Journal – Justin Lahart: Bursting the Stock-Market-Bubble Bubble No, stocks are not in a bubble. But that doesn’t mean investors must like them. With the S&P 500 up a blistering 25% this year, and with stocks like Tesla Motors sporting valuations that strain belief, the word “bubble” has been getting batted around… Continue reading Bubble Talk
The Harvard Crimson – No, Economics Is Not a Science Economists have faced a deluge of negative press in the past few years, ranging from criticisms over the failure to forecast the financial crisis, to the more recent disbelief over the granting of the Nobel Prize in Economics to three economists, two of whom hold… Continue reading Economics: Science vs. Art
This is a very old cartoon but still one of the best ever on Wall Street.
[hana-flv-player video=”https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/SubscriberArea/121213.flv” width=”600″ height=”495″ description=”” player=”3″ autoload=”false” autoplay=”false” loop=”false” autorewind=”true” splashimage=”https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/wp-content/themes/twentyten/images/splash.jpg” /] Audio [audio:https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/SubscriberArea/121213.mp3|titles=Conference Call ] Comment Yesterday we hosted an internal conference call. Above is the webcast and audio. The topics covered: Fischer as vice-Chairman, we are not sure this is a good idea The Fed will not taper next week More on the… Continue reading Discussing Fischer,Taper, The Fed, World Growth and Hedge Funds
USA Today – As stocks hit record highs, so do profit warnings Even though CEOs are warning of profit misses at a pace not seen since 2001, Wall Street pros say cautious CEO guidance won’t derail the mighty bull A potential warning to stock investors: the fourth-quarter earnings pre-announcement season is shaping up to be… Continue reading Do Negative Pre-Announcements Matter?
Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Jon Hilsenrath: Yellen and Fischer Likely on Same Page The most important question about Stanley Fischer’s expected ascension to the number two job at the Federal Reserve: Will the former Bank of Israel governor and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor stand in the way of Janet Yellen’s easy money… Continue reading More On Fischer & Yellen
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Westpac Sees Full-Bore Fed Stimulus Through 2014 The question of when the U.S. Federal Reserve will start cutting back on its monetary stimulus has generated nonstop speculation for months, with expectations moving global markets. Would it be September? December? Early next year? But for Australia’s Westpac Banking Corp., the answer is… Continue reading Timing The Taper
The Financial Times – Hedge funds cut fees to win big investors Do you know what your hedge fund manager is up to? It is a question that haunts the institutional investors who have piled into hedge funds in increasing numbers in recent years, brandishing increasingly large cheques. Mindful of the historic opacity of the… Continue reading More On Hedge Fund Fees