Barrons – Why High-Frequency Trading Doesn’t Compute Wall Street is no autobahn. Traders pushing pedal to the metal risk hurtling into the Buttonwood Trees. Knight Capital’s $440 million computer-generated smash-up this month is the latest sign that the world’s most important financial superhighway, where trades take place in less than the blink of an eye,… Continue reading High Frequency Trading
<Click on chart for larger image> Zero Hedge (Blog) – Volume Crashes As S&P 500 Breaks Winning Streak And VIX Plunges To Five Year Lows The cash S&P 500 closed very modestly in the red – but tried its best into the end of the day-session to get green to make it seven-in-a-row. After-hours, amid… Continue reading Lowest Non-Holiday Volume In Over A Decade
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BusinessWeek – Yellen Must Show How 12 Fed Opinions Become One Policy Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen may face her biggest challenge yet as head of a panel on communications: showing how 12 Fed officials with clashing views unify behind a single policy. Yellen since June 2011 has led a committee created by Chairman… Continue reading The Federal Reserve’s Communications
<Click on chart for larger image> The New York Times – Drought Forces Reductions in U.S. Crop Forecasts With the nation’s worst drought in a half-century continuing to decimate crops, the government on Friday slashed its estimate of the soybean yield, made only a month ago, to the lowest level since 2003 and its estimate… Continue reading More On Soaring Food Prices
Hussman Funds – Begging for Trouble With the daily focus on European crisis and the hope of central bank intervention, one of the essential features of the investment climate – at least for long-term investors – is easy to lose in the shuffle. That feature is valuation. It’s an easy concern to overlook, because with… Continue reading The Market Is A Drug Addict For More Stimulus
The Wall Street Journal – As Corporate-Bond Yields Sink, Risks for Investors Rise For many investors, the appeal of investment-grade corporate bonds is obvious. Interest rates on Treasury bonds are even lower—and likely to stay down for at least the next year or so. But skeptics say the ravenous demand for corporate bonds has pushed… Continue reading Credit
The Wall Street Journal – Olli Rehn: How We’ll Build European Monetary Union 2.0 Europe is committed to building a genuine economic union to strengthen our existing monetary union The euro zone is at a decisive juncture—not only in its three-year-old debt crisis but in its 13-year-old history. And the two are inextricably linked: The… Continue reading What To Do With Europe
The Telegraph (UK) – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Five years on, the Great Recession is turning into a life sentence Five years into the Long Slump it almost seems as if we are back to square one Some date the crisis to August 9 2007, the day it became clear that Europe’s banks were up to their… Continue reading The Crisis, Five Years Later
Vanity Fair – Graydon Carter: Bankstas in the Age of Money The government’s attitude toward different professions is striking. With sports scandals, it zeros in on individuals. But when it comes to banks, federal authorities go after the institutions—when they go after anything at all. The people at the center of a financial scandal are… Continue reading Bankers And Jail
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Comment Yesterday we hosted a conference call discussing the economy and monetary policy as the election draws near as well as Europe’s debt problems in light of central bankers’ repeated promises for more accommodation. If you missed it, below is the audio replay and handout. Monday we will have the transcript and webcast replay. [audio:https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/SubscriberArea/503842-619587.mp3|titles=Conference… Continue reading Outlook Through The Election