Trim Tabs Blog – U.S. Entered Recession in January Yet Fed Fix Keeps Stocks Pumped Welcome to the new recession. TrimTabs tracking of real-time wages and salaries shows that the United States has entered into a recession this year. I had been predicting a slowdown after the big bump in December incomes due to the… Continue reading Are We In A Recession?
Media ITE – Democratic Congresswoman: Sequester Could Cause ‘Over 170 Million Jobs’ To Be Lost On Thursday, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), flanked by her fellow Congressional Democrats, said during a press conference that the mandatory budget cuts contained within the sequester could cost the nation “170 million jobs.” Waters warned that even Federal Reserve Chairman… Continue reading Will The Sequester Cost 170 Million Jobs?
Bloomberg.com – Druckenmiller Sees Storm Worse Than ’08 as Retirees Steal Stan Druckenmiller, one of the best-performing hedge fund managers of the past three decades, has a warning for the youth of America: Don’t let your grandparents steal your money. Druckenmiller, 59, said the mushrooming costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, with unfunded liabilities… Continue reading Druckenmiller Speaks
News Investors – Wage Recession Hits 5 Years; Worse Than Jobs Drought As bad as the current job recovery has been — and it’s by far the weakest since World War II — the recovery in wages has been far worse. Five years after the recession began in December 2007, total wages in the economy… Continue reading Wages
MSN/Money – Jim Juback: March madness, market style The big moves we’ve seen in the past week are a preview of the volatility ahead. From the sequester to a possible government shutdown, news is likely to drive the market. March 1: The start of the sequester. March 7: This is the date of the first… Continue reading Market March Madness
Bloomberg.com – Italy’s Stalemate Imperils Crisis Resolution, Finland Says Italy’s political gridlock following its inconclusive elections risks unraveling years of crisis management, Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen said. Failure to commit to responsible fiscal policies could reignite market turmoil and result in losses that would be “too terrible,” Katainen said in an interview in Helsinki… Continue reading The Mess That Is Italy
MarketWatch – Mark Hulbert: Would new Dow record set a bear market trap? Here’s what happens when market hits a new high That careful review was conducted by Ned Davis Research, the quantitative research firm. Though their study focused on the S&P 500 rather than the Dow Jones Industrial Average, I think it’s safe to… Continue reading Are Stocks Peaking?
BusinessWeek – Bond Doubts Have Brokers Asking: Should I Stay or Go? “Facing the Portfolio Allocation Decision?” That’s the title of a note recently penned by Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist of $330 billion-large Wells Capital Management. It’s a perceptive piece. With so much talk of upcoming gastritis in the fixed-income market, the trillion-dollar topic… Continue reading Your Daily Installment In Bond Market Hate
BusinessWeek – Cover: A Phoenix Housing Boom Forms, in Hint of U.S. Recovery For decades homebuilding has helped the economy recover after a recession. In the spring of 2011 residential construction began to contribute, ever so slightly, to economic growth. It accounted for 0.36 percentage points of the economy’s fourth-quarter growth rate, according to the… Continue reading Contrarian Peak
Bloomberg.com – BOJ Seen Spiking Punchbowl in April Under New Chief Kuroda The Bank of Japan (8301) may add monetary stimulus as early as April as prospective governor Haruhiko Kuroda looks to demonstrate a more aggressive approach to tackling 15 years of falling prices. Kuroda, the current Asian Development Bank president, would take office after… Continue reading The BOJ
PIMCO – Bill Gross: Rational Temperance Corporate credit and high yield bonds are somewhat exuberantly and irrationally priced. Spreads are tight, corporate profit margins are at record peaks with room to fall, and the economy is still fragile. Still that doesn’t mean you should vacate your portfolio of them. It just implies that recent double-digit… Continue reading Bill Gross Speaks