Bloomberg.com – Bernanke Doubles Down on Fed Bet Defied by Recession: Mortgages Ben S. Bernanke is signaling his willingness to double down on a three-year bet that’s failed to revive housing, showing the extent of the Federal Reserve chairman’s effort to wrest a recovery from the deepest recession. Since the Fed started buying $1.25 trillion… Continue reading The Federal Reserve And Housing
The Washington Post – For those hurting most, Fed’s remedies limited “The Fed can pump an extra $2 trillion into the economy, but it can’t control where it goes,” said Dhaval Joshi, chief European strategist at BCA Research, who has examined the effects of similar policies in Britain. “We’re not saying it didn’t help the… Continue reading The Federal Reserve Is Still Unable To Help Those In The Most Need
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Falling euro gives eurozone a lift Do not expect Mario Draghi, European Central Bank president, to say so after Thursday’s interest-rate setting meeting but the eurozone is being helped significantly by the currency’s weakness. More falls would be welcomed by businesses across the 17-country region.… Continue reading The Bright-Side Of The Falling Euro
The Washington Post – In Greece, fears that austerity is killing the economy Greece has been forced to cut spending and raise taxes in the middle of a severe downturn, slashing pensions as well as state salaries, jobs and services. As public confidence has evaporated, consumer spending — the biggest driver of the economy —… Continue reading Will Austerity Kill The Economy In Greece?
The Wall Street Journal – Spanish Banks Try to Build Their Way Out of Home Glut Spain’s strategy has been ‘wait and see. We’ll inject money but little by little,'” said Mr. García Montalvo. “We are no longer in ‘wait and see.’ Now we are in ‘wait and pray.'” The same drawn-out approach to bank… Continue reading Housing In Spain
Zero Hedge – Charting The Price Of Gold… All The Way Back To 1265 We have often seen requests to show the price of gold going back as long as possible. Tonight we can oblige, with a gold price chart, indexed in 2010 British Pounds, going all the way back to 1265. To the surprise… Continue reading History Of Gold Prices
Business Insider – Europe Has A Much Bigger Problem Than Debt, And Nobody Has Any Clue How To Fix It Europe’s underlying problem is not budget deficits or even unsustainable debt. These are mainly symptoms. The real problem with Europe is the huge divergence in costs between the core and the periphery – in the… Continue reading Europe
The Wall Street Journal – Earnings Pessimism Could Be Overdone Alcoa is the Iowa of companies. But like the decidedly mixed verdict from the first Republican caucus, its bellwether status these days is questionable. The aluminum giant kicked off earnings season Monday night with a fourth-quarter loss. That, though, has more to do with structural… Continue reading Earnings Estimates
The Wall Street Journal – Late Deciders Are Taking Their Sweet Time As many as 40% of New Hampshire primary voters will have made a choice in the final three days before the election, with about half of them waiting until shortly before they pull the lever Tuesday, according to the University of New Hampshire… Continue reading The New Hampshire Primary
MarketBeat (WSJ Blog) – First Five Days of Trading Suggest More Upside. If History Is Any Guide. Today was another sleepy trading day, but it left the S&P 500 up 1.8% in the first five trading days of the year, which, according to stock-market legend means you can go ahead and leave your money in… Continue reading The Myth Of The First Trading Week Of The Year
The Financial Times – Merkel hails eurozone treaty progress Negotiations on a new European treaty to reinforce budget discipline in the eurozone are making rapid progress and there is “a good chance” of reaching agreement by the end of January, according to Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor. “We must see progress in the voluntary restructuring of… Continue reading Merkozy