The Wall Street Journal – Rapid-Fire Traders’ Big Fear: Themselves High-frequency trading firms, long resistant to tighter oversight of their businesses, are beginning to change their tune amid a spate of high-profile technology failures that have roiled financial markets. The near-implosion of Knight Capital Group Inc. in early August sent shock waves through rival firms.… Continue reading High Frequency Trading
Bloomberg.com – Volcker Says Fed Bond-Buying Has No Effect on Inflation Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the U.S. central bank’s latest bond-buying program isn’t creating inflationary pressure. “It’s not going to have a profound effect on the economy and it’s not going to have any effect on inflation in the short… Continue reading Volcker Comes To Bernanke’s Defense On Inflation
None Today
Comment Jim Bianco was interviewed by Charles Biderman of Trimtabs last week. To view the interview click on the image above. To view any of our recent interviews click here. The Financial Times – Buybacks and QE – small but important But there is a big difference, those sceptics will now object, between the central… Continue reading Talking Federal Reserve And The Markets
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Debt limit lurks in fiscal cliff talks But lurking just behind the fiscal cliff is a need to raise the debt ceiling again, reviving memories of the political stand-off that led to the downgrade of the US’s triple-A credit rating by Standard & Poor’s in… Continue reading The Debt Ceiling
<Click on chart for larger image> Barron’s – Off Limits for Bond Indexers Flows in and out of bond-index ETFs can distort prices as the underlying bonds swing higher and lower. ETFs like AdvisorShares Peritus High Yield avoid the “ETF bid” by buying bonds outside the indexes’ purviews. They’re calling it the bond market’s “ETF… Continue reading Bond ETFs
MarketWatch – Corporate bond sales set records in September; yields plunge Company debt sales “took off like a bat out of hell” in September, said Ken Jaques, an analyst at Informa Global Markets. That pretty much sums it up. Call it a stampede, a flood, a tidal wave, whatever – companies sold a lot of… Continue reading Corporate Bond Issuance
<Click on chart for larger image> The Associated Press – Eurozone unemployment steady at record 11.4 pct Official data show that unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro remained at its record high of 11.4 percent in August. While European leaders have managed to calm financial markets in recent months with promises to… Continue reading US vs. Eurozone Unemployment
<Click on chart for larger image> The Telegraph (UK) – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Another domino falls as Hollande pushes France into depression If French President François Hollande thinks he can assuage the bond markets by dishing out tax-heavy austerity instead of genuine reform, he has been given very bad advice. His tragically-misguided budget offers no strategic… Continue reading France Gets Worse
<Click on chart for larger image> Reuters –Insight: Mom and pop investors miss out on stock market gains Stocks have more than doubled since the financial crisis and are closing in on a five-year high, but many Main Street investors have been absent from the party – especially those with the least saved. Those who… Continue reading What Is The Public Doing?
Bloomberg.com – Analysts Cut Profit 52% as Europe Valuations Hit 2-Year High Analysts are lowering estimates for European earnings growth by 52 percent, clashing with investors whose confidence in the European Central Bank helped send equity valuations to a 2 1/2-year high. While the Euro Stoxx 50 Index surged 25 percent over the past four… Continue reading Lousy Earnings Now Worldwide
The Financial Times – Wolfgang Münchau: Welcome back to the eurozone crisis Have you noticed that the half-life of eurozone optimism is getting shorter? It was only three weeks ago that Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, announced his outright monetary transactions, a programme of sovereign bond purchases with no upfront limit. It seemed… Continue reading Europe’s Crisis Is Back!