Comment Friday Jim was on Reuters talking about the payroll report and Federal Reserve tapering. To watch it, click on the picture above. To view any of our recent interviews. click here. In the interview Jim argued the Federal Reserve will not announce a taper at the September 18 FOMC meeting. However, as noted below,… Continue reading Taper Talk
Gold Miners Weekly – Tis’ Gold Season, Get it Before it’s Gone! Gold has very powerful, and hence very tradable, seasonal tendencies, just like the weather. In fact, these seasonal tendencies are linked, directly or indirectly, to seasonal weather patterns. There are times of year, in Asia generally, and in India and China particularly, where… Continue reading Gold’s Seasonality
<Click on chart for larger image> BusinessWeek – Jobless Dropping for Wrong Reason Creates Fed Predicament The good news may be bad news for the Federal Reserve as it considers when to begin scaling back its stimulus. While unemployment dropped last month to 7.3 percent, the lowest level since December 2008, the decline occurred because… Continue reading The Employment Population Ratio
Bloomberg View – Mathhew C. Klein: Porn Shutdown Shock Won’t Stop Fed From Tapering One of the big surprises in today’s report was the 6 percent decline in the number of people working in the “motion picture and sound recording industries.” Wags on Twitter proceeded to list their least-favorite summer flops as explanations, but Jim… Continue reading An Interesting Take On The Jobs Report
The Wall Street Journal – Loan Size to Be Cut for Fannie, Freddie Federal officials are preparing to reduce the maximum size of home-mortgage loans eligible for backing by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a move that is likely to face resistance from some lawmakers in Congress and the real estate industry. The proposed move… Continue reading Conforming Loan Limits To Be Reduced
The Wall Street Journal – S&P and Downgrade Payback The timeline of government prosecution suggests a political motive. Standard & Poor’s says in a court filing that it’s being sued by the Justice Department “in retaliation” for the company’s exercise of its “free speech rights with respect to the creditworthiness of the United States of… Continue reading The Justice Department vs. S&P
The New York Times – Joesph E. Stiglitz: Why Janet Yellen, Not Larry Summers, Should Lead the Fed The controversy over the choice of the next head of the Federal Reserve has become unusually heated. The country is fortunate to have an enormously qualified candidate: the Fed’s current vice chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen. There is… Continue reading Yellen vs. Summers
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Hedge Funds Cut Back on Fees Pressure from disappointed investors is forcing hedge funds to roll back their fees, putting the standard charge of 2% of assets under management and 20% of investment profits on the endangered list. Until a few years ago, most… Continue reading Hedge Fund Fees Coming Down
The New York Post – John Crudele: The real-life costs behind the JPM ‘Cult of Jamie’ If you add it all up, Jamie has cost shareholders $28.2B in five years, which seems about equal to the total full-year profits for 2012. All the profits last year were [frittered] away. There are profound implications of all… Continue reading The Cult of Jamie
The Financial Times – David Rosenberg: Don’t bet against Bernanke’s inflation quest As the debate rages over who the next Federal Reserve chairman will be, it seems Ben Bernanke’s legacy will not just be that he saved the world from financial calamity five years ago: he is also likely to bequeath stagflation, or at least… Continue reading The Federal Reserve’s Inflation Mandate
The Wall Street Journal – A Stress Gauge Suggests Potential Upside for Stocks That is the message from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It combines 18 different weekly data points to construct its own Financial Stress Index. Every week’s reading is factored into an average rebased to zero, with positive numbers indicating more… Continue reading The Financial Stress Index
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Final-Hour Selloffs Raise Warning Flag A momentum trend in the stock market suggests the rally may be treading on thin ice. Stocks have consistently sold off over the past month during the market’s final trading hour of the day. The selloffs coincide with the latest developments in Syria and the potential… Continue reading Trading The Last Hour Of The Day