<Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – John Hilsenrath and Matt Phillips: Fed Holds Fire on Stimulus The Fed is in no hurry to launch new measures to boost economic growth, minutes from the central bank’s most recent meeting showed, disappointing investors eager for more… Continue reading The FOMC Minutes …QE3 And Inflation
Bloomberg.com – Home Prices Seen Dropping 10% in U.S. on Foreclosures As many as 1.25 million of America’s least cared for homes are headed for auction after a year-long probe into foreclosure practices kept them off the market. Sales of repossessed properties probably will rise 25 percent this year from 1 million in 2011, according… Continue reading Will Foreclosures Drive Home Prices Lower?
<Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> Yahoo Finance – ETF Assets Slowly Gaining on Mutual Funds While the $10 trillion U.S. mutual fund market dwarfs the $1.1 trillion exchange traded fund industry, inflows into ETF products have… Continue reading An Updated Look At ETF Assets
Comment March Payrolls will be released on Friday, April 6. This is also Good Friday and the stock market will be closed. Bonds will open for a half-day session to react to this release. Fixed income futures will close at 11AM ET and cash trading will close at noon ET. As the table above shows,… Continue reading Payrolls On Good Friday
CNBC.com – T. Boone Pickens: Oil Could Hit $148 Per Barrel Tightening oil production worldwide could mean prices hitting $148 per barrel this summer, Texas billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday. Not even spare capacity from Saudi Arabia would be enough to make up the difference amid increasing sanctions against Iranian oil, Pickens said… Continue reading Gas Prices
The Wall Street Journal – SEC Probes Ties to High-Speed Traders U.S. securities regulators are conducting a wide-ranging investigation into the complex relationships between rapid-fire trading firms and stock exchanges, according to the official overseeing some 20 probes into computerized trading. The inquiry into ownership and other ties is part of a broader probe into… Continue reading High Frequency Trading And The SEC
Bloomberg.com – The Birth of U.S. Fiat Currency On April 2, 1862, the first greenback left the U.S. Treasury, marking the start of a new era in the American monetary system. At the start of the Civil War, the U.S. didn’t have a national paper currency. Instead, the money supply consisted of U.S. coins and… Continue reading The U.S. Fiat Currency
None Today
Comment Jim Bianco was on Bloomberg TV yesterday discussing Federal Reserve policy and U.S. stocks. To view the interview click on the image above. To view any of our recent interviews click here. In the first part, Jim talked about the lack of earnings growth as the next two charts show (Bloomberg data). <Click on… Continue reading Discussing Stocks And The Federal Reserve
MarketWatch – Should you sell in April? Those interested in doing some spring cleaning in their portfolios this month might be tempted to do the most radical spring cleaning of all: Sell everything and go to cash. That’s because April represents the end of the seasonally favorable six-month period that began last Halloween, and the… Continue reading Seasonality
<Click on chart for larger image> MarketBeat (WSJ Blog) – Low Trading Volumes Potentially a Pension Problem Low trading volume is due in part to large institutional investors like pensions that are sitting out the rally. Contrary to what some think, they might not ever leave the sidelines. Strategists and analysts expect them to come… Continue reading Are Pensions Responsible For Low Volume?
The Wall Street Journal – The Worst Economic Recovery in History How many times have we heard that this was the worst recession since the Great Depression? That may be true—although the double-dip recession of the early 1980s was about comparable. Less publicized is that our current recovery pales in comparison with most other recoveries,… Continue reading How Strong Is The Current Global Recovery?