<Click on chart for larger image> Barron’s – Gene Epstein: The Labor-Force Participation Puzzle Low labor-force participation is crucially different from high unemployment, and it’s high unemployment Chairman Bernanke should be focused on. The Federal Reserve under Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has behaved quite unusually by any standard of business-as-usual for a central bank. In… Continue reading The Labor Force Participation Rate
The Financial Times – Graduates turn away from Wall St More graduates are opting for careers outside investment banking as the pull of big bonuses is replaced by job insecurity in an industry struggling to adapt to regulatory change. MBA statistics show a steady decline in the number of graduates taking jobs at investment banks.… Continue reading Plastics Benjy, Not Wall Street
The Economist – Buttonwood: The secrets of Buffett’s success Beating the market with beta IF INVESTORS had access to a time machine and could take themselves back to 1976, which stock should they buy? For Americans, the answer is clear: the best risk-adjusted return came not from a technology stock, but from Berkshire Hathaway, the… Continue reading Buffett And Beta
The New York Times – Floyd Norris: Viewing the Economy Through Campaign Glasses ACCORDING to numerous economic indicators, the American economy is getting better. According to the same indicators, the economy is not doing very well. The accompanying charts illustrate that dual reality, and do so in ways that either the Barack Obama or Mitt… Continue reading The US Economy
Bloomberg.com – William D. Cohan: SEC Sues the One Rating Firm Not on Wall Street’s Take The Securities and Exchange Commission, it seems, has finally lost its mind. In April, motivated by what I consider pure maliciousness, the SEC initiated a “cease and desist” administrative proceeding it deemed “necessary for the protection of investors and… Continue reading Do The Right Thing And Get Sued
None Today
The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: How Bernanke Pulled the Fed His Way In late August, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke argued on behalf of Fed programs to stimulate the lumbering U.S. economy and signaled that more might follow, making headlines in his highly anticipated speech at the Fed’s annual retreat in Jackson Hole,… Continue reading Behind The Scenes Of QE3
Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Nearly 400,000 More Jobs Added Than First Thought About 400,000 more Americans have jobs than we thought. The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday released an early look at its annual “benchmark revision” of its payroll data. When the preliminary revisions become final early next year, the official data… Continue reading BLS Revisions Add More Jobs
The Wall Street Journal – Spain Unveils New Set of Overhauls The Spanish government on Thursday unveiled a package of regulatory overhauls, tax increases and spending cuts for 2013, gaining a short-term market reprieve as concerns mount over Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s ability to stabilize the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy. Spending will actually rise by… Continue reading Spain’s Budget
The Financial Times – Mohamed El-Erian: Europe needs to look at sharing more of Greece’s pain If you want to cause major discomfort at a meeting of European policymakers, just try mentioning “OSI”, or official sector involvement. The notion that official creditors, and by that I mean governments and regional/multilateral institutions, may need to accept… Continue reading Greece
MarketBeat (WSJ Blog) – Obama? Romney? For Stocks, It Doesn’t Matter With the third quarter coming to a close today, all eyes now officially turn to the presidential election. For stocks, that’s a good thing. Major stock indexes have registered big gains in 2012, despite slowing earnings growth, a disappointing global economy and weakness in… Continue reading Presidential Election Seasonality
The Wall Street Journal – Libor Probe Urges Regulators to Look at Other Benchmarks Global regulators should scrutinize other commonly used benchmarks in financial markets to ensure they are “robust and credible,” a top British regulator said Friday following his review of a key interest rate at the center of a rate-rigging scandal. Martin Wheatley,… Continue reading In Search Of LIBOR’s Replacement