The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: A Forecast of What the Fed Will Do: Stand Pat It’s possible to handicap the Fed’s changing forecast in part because officials are becoming open about it. And the outlook doesn’t look like it’s shifting in a way that would support new initiatives to boost economic growth. The… Continue reading The Federal Reserve Meets This Week
Comment The chart above shows intrade betting on the French election. Hollands has never traded below 50% this year and is now trading 86% ahead of May 6th run-off election. Expect Hollande to win and expect him to follow through on his socialist agenda and potentially put the agreements to hold Europe together at risk.… Continue reading Sarkozy Loses, France Heading Towards Socialism?
CBS News – 60 Minutes: The case against Lehman Brothers It’s hard to overstate the enormity of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. It was the largest bankruptcy in history; 26,000 employees lost their jobs; millions of investors lost all or almost all of their money; and it triggered a chain reaction that produced the… Continue reading The Case Against Lehman Brothers
The Atlantic – How Much Is a Good Central Banker Worth? You’ve heard of an international market for superstar soccer players. We need an international market for superstar central bankers. Central banking should be a superstar profession. The difference between a top central banker and an average one can be astronomical, particularly when conventional policy… Continue reading Bernanke And The End of Capitalism
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Italy Consumer Confidence Plunges to Record Low in April Italian consumer confidence plunged to the lowest in more than 15 years in April as Prime Minister Mario Monti’s austerity drive deepens the recession in Europe’s fourth-biggest economy. The confidence index declined to 89, the lowest since the… Continue reading Don’t Forget The Mess That Is Italy
The Economist – The return of the euro crisis: Beyond battlefield medicine The euro zone needs more growth, new banking rules and a path to joint Eurobonds The real reason why the crisis is back is because the remedy is insufficient. In recession, fiscal austerity is now serving mainly to make weak economies even weaker.… Continue reading The Euro Crisis
The Wall Street Journal – Holland, Not Hollande, Is Europe’s Latest Worry Never mind the French presidential elections, which delivered the expected result of a run-off between Socialist leader Francois Hollande and incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. The collapse of the fiscally hawkish Dutch government after seven weeks of budget wrangling could be a bigger shock for… Continue reading Holland
Business Insider – Doug Short: Vehicle Miles Driven Have Been Tumbling For 6 1/2 Years [Above] is a chart that illustrates this data series from its inception in 1970. I’m plotting the “Moving 12-Month Total on ALL Roads,” as the DOT terms it. See Figure 1 in the PDF report, which charts the data from… Continue reading Driving And The Economy
Barron’s – Reason To Cheer America’s portfolio managers see more gains for stocks in our latest Big Money poll. They are wary of bonds, hopeful about the economy and predict that President Obama will be re-elected. Color America’s money managers cautiously optimistic about the stock market’s prospects in the year ahead. Corporations generally are in… Continue reading Big Money Is Bullish Stocks, Hates Bonds
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The Wall Street Journal – MARK SPITZNAGEL: How the Fed Favors The 1% The Fed doesn’t expand the money supply by dropping cash from helicopters. It does so through capital transfers to the largest banks The Fed, having gone on an unprecedented credit expansion spree, has benefited the recipients who were first in line at… Continue reading Who Benefits From QE?
The Financial Times – Corporate earnings bolster bulls With more than a fifth of S&P 500 companies having announced their first quarter figures, more than 80 per cent are considered to have beaten expectations. Big technology groups in particular have tended to “beat the Street” and the latest is Microsoft, whose shares rose after hours… Continue reading Q1 2012 Earnings So Far