Barron’s – Cover: Ready to Rebound After falling 34% over the past six years, U.S. home prices will soon bottom. They could turn back up by spring 2013 Yet as grim as these year-end readings appear to be, there are signs that the long nightmare for American homeowners is in its terminal stage, and that,… Continue reading Barron’s Calls For A Housing Bottom … Again!
The New York Times – Floyd Norris: In Sit-Down Restaurants, an Economic Indicator Over the 12 months through January, sales at what the government calls full-service restaurants were 8.7 percent higher than in the previous 12 months. That was the fastest pace of growth since the late 1990s, when the economy was booming. Moreover, as… Continue reading Using Restaurant Sales As An Economic Indicator
Bloomberg.com – Bernanke Seen Not Knowing Jobless Rate Less Than Fed Predictions David Waldrop, 59, says he considers himself retired after searching unsuccessfully for work comparable to the job he lost in July 2007 at the U.S. Department of Energy in Atlanta.“There was certainly nothing in my area at my level,” he said. While the… Continue reading Bernanke And The Unemployed
The Wall Street Journal – U.S. Made Profit on Mortgage Debt In the latest sign of the government’s gradual retreat from financial-crisis-related programs, the Treasury Department is expected to announce Monday that taxpayers reaped a $25 billion profit on mortgage bonds purchased at the height of the meltdown.The profit is the Treasury’s biggest for any… Continue reading U.S. Made A Profit On Mortgages
<Click on chart for larger image> Reuters – Tapping oil from reserve may be trickier than ever The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not quite as strategic as it used to be. As President Barack Obama moves closer to an unprecedented second release of the U.S. emergency oil stockpile in a bid to bring down… Continue reading Releasing Crude From The SPR
The Wall Street Journal – Wall Street Keys On Landlord Business Some of the biggest names on Wall Street are lining up to become landlords to cash-strapped Americans by bidding on pools of foreclosed properties being sold by Fannie Mae. The idea is that the new owners would rent out the homes at first rather… Continue reading Wall Street Bidding On Foreclosures
Business Insider – FAIL: 84% Of Actively Managed Mutual Funds Did Worse Than Their Benchmarks In 2011 Managers of stock mutual funds had an unusually tough time beating the market last year, with fewer than one in five achieving that goal, a study found. That’s the lowest number in the 10 years the study has… Continue reading Money Managers Miss Their Benchmark
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Wall St braced for hit to soaring markets US corporations’ quarterly earnings are set to register their first decline in more than two years, in what will be a challenge to the stock market’s stellar start to 2012. The S&P 500 last week rose above… Continue reading Earnings
BBC News – Is Nassim Nicholas Taleb Downing Street’s favourite adviser? The work of a Lebanese-American philosopher has captivated Downing Street, including the Prime Minister David Cameron. “I like going to 10 Downing,” says Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Lebanese-American thinker and former Wall Street trader, “seeing the offices and the most powerful person in his… Continue reading The End Of The British Empire
The Financial Times – Greece over halfway to recovery, says PM Greece’s caretaker prime minister insists that a “large, silent majority” of Greeks are willing to do whatever is needed to stay in the eurozone, despite near-daily anti-austerity demonstrations. Lucas Papademos said Greece was determined to avoid another debt restructuring and its political leaders were… Continue reading The Recovery In Greece … Almost Halfway Over
Reuters – Fed revises stress test losses The Federal Reserve bank said on Friday it had made mistakes in calculating bank losses in stress test results released this week. But the Federal Reserve noted the revisions — which affect Citigroup (C.N), Bank of America (BAC.N), and three others — have no effect on key figures… Continue reading The Federal Reserve Made Some Mistakes In The Stress Test Losses …Revisions Will Be Released This Week
Bloomberg Businessweek – Apple May Return Some of $97.6B With Dividend Apple Inc. (AAPL), which plans to discuss its $97.6 billion in cash and investments in a conference call today, is likely to announce a dividend, according to analysts’ predictions and data compiled by Bloomberg. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter… Continue reading A Dividend For Apple?