LA Times – GM, Chrysler federal bailouts were net economic gain, report argues As the federal government gets ready to sell the last of its shares in General Motors Co., a research institute has calculated the final bill on the auto industry bailout and says that taxpayers were net winners. The Center for Automotive Research,… Continue reading Government Motors No More
<Click on chart for larger image> MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – This Year’s Rally in Five Charts The stock market’s rally to all-time highs in 2013 has been defined by an improving economy, an accommodative Federal Reserve and record corporate profits. The S&P 500 trades above 1800, up 26% this year, and has repeatedly set fresh… Continue reading The Year In One Chart
<Click on chart for larger image. <Click on chart for larger image> FT Alphaville (FT Blog) – Two and twenty is long dead and buried Glance at a Citi Prime Finance report that fees are starting to crumble, and a casual reader might conclude that something is wrong in the house of hedge funds. Perhaps… Continue reading Hedge Funds, Is 2% and 20% Dead?
None Today
Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Jon Hilsenrath: Hilsenrath’s Five Takeaways on What the Jobs Report Means for the Fed TAPER ON THE TABLE: Strengthening payroll employment gains lay the ground work for the Fed to begin pulling back on its $85 billion-per-month bond-buying program and increases the odds that it will start either in… Continue reading Hilsenrath Tells Us What We Should Think Of The Payroll Report
The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: Fed Closes In On Winding Down Bond Purchasing Strong Jobs Report Moves Central Bank Nearer to Paring Purchases; Dow Soars Federal Reserve officials are closer to winding down their controversial $85 billion-a-month bond-purchase program, possibly as early as December, in the wake of Friday’s encouraging jobs report. The… Continue reading Fed Taper, The WSJ vs The NYT
The Wall Street Journal – Justin Lahart: Jobs Report Tees Up a Taper The strong jobs report was seen as good news by investors. For the Federal Reserve, that is good news in itself…They will probably still opt to leave the bond-buying program untouched when they meet later this month, but the jobs report clearly… Continue reading Timing The Taper
CNBC – Bob Pisani: Does a Federal Reserve taper matter for stocks? Now, all of a sudden we get the Mother of All Good News and stocks stage a rally, with little or no reaction in the bond market? The market today is saying: Don’t sell on tapering. Huh? Does this mean that tapering is… Continue reading Are Stocks Rising Independently Of QE?
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – China’s Reforms May Boost Gold ETFs Chinese appetites for gold as a securitized investment instrument may increase as the country shifts toward more market-oriented policies, according to a senior World Gold Council executive. Already-increasing consumption of gold in China could accelerate given that Beijing pledged after its Third Plenum last month… Continue reading Gold ETFs
The Wall Street Journal – How to Guess Right on Commodities and Still Lose Skeptical investors who concluded a few years ago that the decadelong commodities rally was running out of steam have been vindicated, and the timely bets they placed on falling prices have often paid off. But in a handful of cases, investors… Continue reading Investing In Commodity Funds
MarketWatch – The chart that’s scaring Wall Street Opinion: It’s not the late 1920s redux. Don’t panic, the analysis is flawed In recent days, a chart featuring two lines like the ones shown below has been circulating among trading desks, according to hedge-fund manager Douglas Kass. It certainly looks scary, pointing as it does to… Continue reading Historical Parallels
The Motley Fool – Bubbles: No One Has Any Idea What’s Going On The word “bubble” didn’t exist in economic textbooks 20 years ago, according to Yale economist Robert Shiller. How can something we didn’t talk about before the mid-1990s suddenly infect every inch of the global economy? The fact that no one talked about… Continue reading Defining A Bubble