<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Brent Crude Below $100 The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil fell below $100 for the first time in nine months Tuesday as a selloff that started Monday continued. Oil’s decline—the front-month Brent crude oil contract on London’s ICE futures exchange was… Continue reading Falling Crude Oil
The Big Picture – The 10 Rules of Goldbuggery The advocates for any sort of investing thesis have their rules, metrics, heuristics and biases. Here are the rules we teased out for the Gold Trade: The 10 Rules of Goldbuggery 1. Gold is a Currency 2. The price of gold cannot fall, it can only… Continue reading Rules of Goldbuggery
The Financial Times – America’s problem is not political gridlock With last week’s release of the president’s budget, Washington has once again descended into partisan squabbling. In the US today, there is pervasive concern about the basic functioning of democracy. Congress is viewed less favourably than ever before in the history of opinion polling. There… Continue reading Government Gridlock & The Markets
Bloomberg.com – Economy Bears Turn Bulls Seeing 3% U.S. GDP Few Saw in 2012 Bearish forecasts for the U.S. economy are giving way to more upbeat views of the nation’s ability to weather federal spending cuts and tax increases. At Morgan Stanley in New York, Chief U.S. Economist Vincent Reinhart now sees a 3 percent… Continue reading Economists Turn Bullish
<Click on chart for larger image> The Guardian – Cyprus sell-off fears send gold price tumbling The price of gold fell to its lowest level in more than 18 months on Friday night amid fears that sales of the precious metal forced on Cyprus by its desperate financial plight would lead to wholesale dumping by… Continue reading Gold’s Decline
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – The riddle of Europe’s single currency with many values A European Central Bank survey shows that households in northern Europe have a much lower net wealth than those in southern Europe. Average German net assets per household are just under €200,000, while they are €300,000… Continue reading The Value Of The Euro
CNBC – El-Erian: Cyprus Rescue Goes From Bad to Worse The press conference at today’s Eurogroup meeting in Dublin showed the sad incoherence of the Cyprus rescue. Also, by confirming the concerns outlined in this note a week ago, it served to further weaken the credibility of the mechanism that is at the center of… Continue reading Cyprus
The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: View Brightens for Fed Pessimist Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, says he is beginning to see lumber trucks chugging around his neighborhood for the first time in five years, and he has noticed a national rise in pickup-truck sales, consistent with a rebound… Continue reading Fed’s Rosengren Turning More Optimistic
Bloomberg.com – William Cohan: Stockman KO’s Krugman in Big Fed Brawl Because I don’t have — and have no prayer of ever having — a Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, this statement is tantamount to blasphemy: Paul Krugman, the Nobel-winning economist and New York Times columnist, is wrong. At least when it comes to denigrating… Continue reading Krugman Responds To Stockman With A Rant Of His Own
Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Who Will Succeed Bernanke? Who Should? Janet Yellen’s chances to move up from No. 2 to No. 1 at the Federal Reserve are looking pretty good to the economists that participated in the latest Wall Street Journal survey. The survey yielded a 46% probability that the president would nominate… Continue reading Guessing Bernanke’s Successor
The Wall Street Journal – China GDP Growth Slows to 7.7% China’s economic growth slowed unexpectedly in the first quarter, raising concerns that a recovery that started in the second half of last year is already losing steam. Gross domestic product grew 7.7% on a year-to-year basis in the first quarter, down from 7.9% in… Continue reading China’s Economy