Bloomberg.com – Coca-Cola Profit Declines as European Sales Volumes Fall Net income fell to $2.68 billion, or 59 cents a share, from $2.79 billion, or 61 cents, a year earlier, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola said today in a statement. Excluding some items, profit was 63 cents a share, matching the average of 16 analysts’ estimates compiled by… Continue reading How Companies Manage Earnings Expectations
Tim Duy’s Fed Watch (Blog) – Friday Afternoon Fed Blogging We gained a lot of insight into Fed policy this week, and not all of it was pretty. Some thoughts as Friday comes to a close: The Fed is deeply divided Bernanke is pulling the strings Bernanke tipped his hand big time Is there a… Continue reading Bernanke’s 7% Unemployment Threshold
MarketWatch – Economy skids dangerously close to contraction Spending weakening, but incomes still growing U.S. economic growth has again slowed sharply, skidding dangerously close in the second quarter to an outright contraction in gross domestic product. Following the releases Monday of tepid reports on retail sales and inventory accumulation, forecasters marked down their GDP expectations… Continue reading Could Q2 GDP Turn Negative?
The New York Times – Andrew Ross Sorkin: On Wall St., a Culture of Greed Won’t Let Go And yet a new report on industry insiders about ethical conduct, to be released on Tuesday, disturbingly suggests that Wall Street’s high-minded words may largely still be lip service. Of 250 industry insiders from dozens of financial… Continue reading If You Could Get Away With It?
Prospect Blog – The Economist as outsider Economics needs to change. Many academic and professional economists have been re-evaluating the subject since 2008, reflecting a widespread view within the economics profession that the financial crisis and its aftermath underlined its serious shortcomings. Employers say they can hire economics graduates who are technically able and can… Continue reading How To Fix The Profession Of Economics
Bloomberg.com – Free Fab! Then Go After Fuld and Cayne and O’Neal So much for change we can believe in at Mary Jo White’s Securities and Exchange Commission. Instead of doing the obvious and right thing and terminating the wholly gratuitous prosecution of the Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre — which begins this morning in a… Continue reading Free Fab!
None Today
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – US ‘jumbo’ loan rates as cheap as standard mortgages Borrowers in some parts of the US are able to get mortgages for expensive properties at rates that are lower than those on government-subsidised loans, as a result of changes in the mortgage market. The average… Continue reading Jumbo Vs Conforming Mortgages, How Wall Street Interprets Noise
Business Insider – Matthew Boesler: Jon Hilsenrath Is Not Who You Think He Is There is a common perception that WSJ reporter Jon Hilsenrath, perhaps one of the most well-connected journalists at the Federal Reserve, is in such close contact with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that markets should hinge on his every word. Stephen Roach… Continue reading Being John Hilsenrath
Bloomberg.com – Should Fed’s Policies Rule the World? As we have observed recently in southern Europe, or in Asia during the 1997 financial crisis, importing monetary policy can be dangerous. It is surprising then that the Fed’s dominance hasn’t caused even deeper problems over the decades. The relative lack of trouble may be because, for… Continue reading Should FOMC Policy Consider Effect On Other Countries?
Real-Time Economics – Changing Odds on Next Fed Chair Gamblers are setting the market straight about the odds on who will succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the next Federal Reserve chairman. When we last checked the online betting side Paddy Power gave 1 to 5 odds (meaning you have to bet $5 to make… Continue reading Betting On The Next FOMC Chair
Bloomberg.com –Fed’s Plosser Calls for Tapering of QE to Begin in September I’d like for us to start in September” to taper the purchases, Plosser said in the Bloomberg Television interview with Michael McKee to air July 15. “We don’t want to create another housing boom,” and “we have to be careful of the unintended… Continue reading Timing The Taper