The Wall Street Journal – Ben Zimmer: The Bubble for ‘Bubble’ Knows No End President Obama has gone on an anti-bubble offensive. In a series of speeches earlier this month, Obama warned of duplicating policies that led to the housing bubble and its inevitable burst. He said he wants a Fed chairman who “makes sure… Continue reading Beware Of Bubbles
Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Did Fed’s Forward Guidance Backfire? Paper Says Probably The Federal Reserve believes that providing clear guidance about the likely future course of its policies make them more effective in boosting the economy, while helping to tamp down on market volatility and uncertainty. That may not be so, said a… Continue reading Forward Guidance
Bloomberg.com – Gary Shilling: Rapid U.S. Growth Is Missing, Not Gone Forever We are now about five years into the deleveraging, and the related slow global growth, that followed the 2008 financial crisis. My forecast is for another five years of unwinding the excess borrowing by banks worldwide, U.S. consumers and many other sectors. The… Continue reading Growth Prospects In A Deleveraging Economy
A good portfolio manager, while always scanning the horizon for opportunities, must also be aware of all the risks he is exposed to.
Comment Jim Bianco was on CNBC yesterday discussing the Federal Reserve and the markets. To view the interview, click on the image above. To view any of our recent interviews, click here. We detailed our views on forward guidance last week by using comments by CNBC’s Steve Liesman. We argued: Steve Liesman is doing what… Continue reading The Federal Reserve Is A Confused Mess And Cannot Decide What To Do Next
The New York Times – Paul Krugman: This Age of Bubbles I know that there are some people who believe that the Fed has been keeping interest rates too low, and printing too much money, all along. But interest rates in the ’80s and ’90s were actually high by historical standards, and even during the… Continue reading Krugman On Bubbles
Bloomberg.com – JPMorgan Sub-New Normal Growth Seen Vexing Next Fed Chief The next chairman of the Federal Reserve faces an alarming possibility: the new normal for the economy is even worse than advertised. The long-run potential growth rate for gross domestic product has slid to around 1 3/4 percent per year, from an average rise… Continue reading Has Potential GDP Declined? If So, Is Everything Overvalued?
CNBC – Jobless picture is worse than you think: Gallup Widely followed pollster Gallup puts the nation’s unemployment rate at an ugly 8.6 percent in August, a startling jump from the 7.8 percent the organization recorded for July. When counting the underemployed, the rate zooms to 17.7 percent, off its 2013 high of 18.2 percent. … Continue reading Jobs Turning Down?
The New York Times – Bernanke, the Audacious Pragmatist SHORTLY before Ben S. Bernanke was nominated as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2005, he paid a return visit to Stanford, where he started his academic career in 1979. In a speech, he recalled that he and his wife, Anna, had rented a house with… Continue reading Inside Ben Bernanke
The Wall Street Journal – Goldman Is a Victor in Ruling on Options Trades Goldman Sachs Group Inc. won a decisive victory Thursday when the NYSE Euronext’s Amex options exchange canceled most of the errant trades that buffeted markets Tuesday morning. The cancellations came despite appeals by Goldman trading partners for the transactions to stand.… Continue reading Goldman Wins (Are You Surprised?)
MarketWatch – This muni-bond selloff looks like Lehman all over again: Janney Invoking comparisons to the financial event that sent markets spiraling and helped set off the financial crisis isn’t usually undertaken lightly. So we take notice when analysts — and analysts known for being even-keeled, at that — call the muni market a “Lehman-like”… Continue reading The Muni Market’s Lehman Moment?
CNBC – CNBC unleashes ‘Decabox’ for the Nasdaq ‘Flash Freeze’ In what some are dubbing the “Flash Freeze,” the Nasdaq halted trading in all securities on Thursday afternoon due to a problem affecting quote dissemination. What caused the glitch? When will stocks resume trading? What does the NASDAQ have to say? Those were just some… Continue reading You Know A Crisis Is Serious If CNBC Goes To The Decabox!