Time – If There’s No Inflation, Why Are Prices Up So Much? Perhaps the most telling indicator – albeit a slightly facetious one – is the Big Mac index, popularized by the Economist magazine. McDonalds hamburgers are available in many countries and their prices reflect the cost of food, fuel, commercial real estate, and basic… Continue reading Where Is The Inflation?
<Click on chart for larger image> Barron’s – The Market Is Running on Fumes In the week since the Dow entered record territory, stocks have drifted higher on low volume. That’s probably not good. To be sure, volume is not the indicator it once was. But one look at major exchange-traded funds shows the volume… Continue reading NYSE Volume Continues To Diminish
Reuters.com – Britain’s fiscal failure David Cameron, of course, is the prime minister of the UK, and last week he gave a rambling 4,000-word speech on the national economy which is almost impossible to read. For some reason the speech appears online in what you might call teleprompter format, with a single sentence sometimes spanning… Continue reading Trouble In The UK
None Today
Barron’s – The Fed’s Impact Only Goes So Far The central bank’s easy money is persuading businesses to relever balance sheets but not to break ground on new plants, writes Macrostrategy’s David Goldman. Optimism about U.S. consumers drove employment gains in February. Evidently the wealth effect from rising equity and home prices has spilled over… Continue reading The Impact From Easy Money
Charts of the Week Topics Covered This Week Include: Earnings The Dollar As The Worlds Reserve Currency Real Estate In The U.S. Household Net Worth What Deleveraging? Credit Market Debt “Government” Credit Market Debt as a % Of GDP Treasury Holdings VIX At Multi-Year Lows Updated Look At Gas Prices Margin Debt Soars A Look… Continue reading Charts of the Week
Comment Jim Bianco guest hosted Squawk Box Europe earlier this morning. In the segment above, Jim discusses retail investors. To view the interview click on the image above. To view any of our recent interviews click here. Yahoo Finance – ‘Too Big to Jail’ Causing Investors to Miss Rally Retail investors have missed out on… Continue reading Discussing Retail Investors
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Dollar is the only serious reserve player Predictions of the decline of the dollar as the world’s pre-eminent reserve currency have been two a penny since the onset of the credit crunch in 2007. They have been given ample headroom by dollar weakness associated with… Continue reading The Dollar As The World’s Reserve Currency
The Financial Times – Lex: Corporate leverage: in the midst of debt Deleveraging is over; the recovery will now begin. This happy notion has been tossed around a lot lately…It is widely thought that companies are carrying little debt and have deleveraged since the crisis. Not true. Low interest rates mean that more debt can… Continue reading Corporate Leverage
TheFiscalTimes.com – Can the Fed Burst the Next Bubble Before It’s Too Late? Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis president Jim Bullard recently noted an important debate within the Fed about how to respond to financial bubbles. Reacting to a speech by Federal Reserve governor Jeremy Stein, President Bullard said “My main takeaway … was… Continue reading Reacting To Bubbles
Bloomberg.com – Fed’s Bank Stress Tests Make Dubious Assumptions The results of the Federal Reserve’s 2013 stress tests are promising, showing that 17 of the 18 largest U.S.-bank holding companies have a resilient base of capital and could withstand three different severe recession scenarios. Performing well on these tests is highly important to banks and… Continue reading Criticizing The Stress Tests
<Click on chart for larger image> MarketBeat (WSJ Blog) – Margin Debt Soared in January; Sign of Top Nearing? Need any more proof that US stock investors are positively giddy? NYSE says margin debt jumped 10% in January alone to $364 billion, 32% higher than a year earlier and the third-highest ever, trailing just June… Continue reading Margin Debt Soars