The Wall Street Journal – Spencer Jakab: Companies Rush to Lower Earnings Bar A Record Number of Firms Are Giving Negative Guidance Ahead of Third-Quarter Earnings Season, but That May Not Bode Poorly for Stocks on Its Own You’ve been warned. Large U.S. companies haven’t been this cautious in recent memory. With third-quarter earnings season… Continue reading Earnings Are Coming Next Week And Companies Are Warning
The Financial Times – Hedge funds step into the shadows Some of the world’s best-known hedge funds have stepped into the shoes of Wall Street banks and expanded into the $5tn “repo” market, where financial companies lend out their assets in exchange for short-term loans. The rise of non-bank players in the repo market has… Continue reading Hedge Funds And Repo
NBC News – Treasury warns default could be worse than Great Recession The U.S. Treasury Department is warning that the economy could plunge into a downturn worse than the Great Recession if Congress fails to raise the federal borrowing limit and the country defaults on its debt obligations. A default could cause the nation’s credit… Continue reading Now The Treasury Secretary Is Bearish
Forbes – Paul Roderick Gregory: We Are Shutting Down Only Thirteen Percent of the Government (At Most) According to my back-of-the-envelope count, at a minimum, $150 billion will be spent on essential services from agencies like Homeland Security, National Nuclear Security, Veterans Affairs, Social Security Administration, and others. Counting these essential services reduces the misnamed… Continue reading How Much Of The Government Is Closed?
The Economist – Third arrow, please The prime minister is right to raise the consumption tax, but must do more to boost Japan’s growth THE last time any politician dared to raise Japan’s unpopular consumption tax, people were beginning to use something called e-mail, the craze for Tamagotchi pets was spreading, and the economy was… Continue reading Japan
The Economist – The profits prophet A new book explains why business investment has been low PROFITS have been booming in America, reaching the highest proportion of GDP since the second world war. Given such buoyant conditions, you might imagine that businesses are investing like crazy to take advantage of all those great opportunities.Not a… Continue reading Business Investment
CNBC – Jim Rogers: An ‘even worse catastrophe’ is coming Jim Rogers has a two-word message for U.S. investors: “Be careful.” “The U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world,” Rogers told CNBC.com Wednesday night by phone from Singapore. “We may well have a big, big rally in the U.S. stock… Continue reading Jim Rogers Speaks
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Bloomberg – U.S. Debt Limit: Timeline, Key Payment Dates After Oct. 17 (no link) Treasury expects to exhaust extraordinary measures, hit debt ceiling on Oct. 17, when “we will be left to meet our country’s commitments” with about $30b at hand, Treasury Secretary Lew wrote in letter yesterday. * CBO projects Treasury may exhaust borrowing… Continue reading How A Debt Ceiling Breach Can Lead To A Historic Buying Opportunity For Treasuries
Voice of America – Current US Political Crisis Decades in the Making The ongoing partial shutdown of the U.S. government is the culmination of years of political polarization in the United States with roots that go back at least two decades. At the heart of the dispute in Washington is a clash between the two… Continue reading How Government Polarization Led To The Shutdown
The Wall Street Journal – Investors Have to Wing It in the Shutdown As far as anyone can tell, the job market is holding steady. But until the government shutdown ends, who really knows? Wednesday, check-cutting giant Automatic Data Processing ADP -0.19% reported that private-sector employers added 166,000 jobs last month, a shade less than… Continue reading Government Data Is One Of Many Casualties
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Caroline Baum: Steve Jobs Never Worried About the Debt Ceiling Regular readers know I’m a skeptic when it comes to uncertainty as the explanation for every wiggle in the markets, every downtick in consumer confidence, every percentage-point decline in business investment. In many cases, uncertainty is a… Continue reading Policy Uncertainty