The Financial Times – Investors wrestle with S&P earnings outlook There is no shortage of bulls on Wall Street forecasting record company earnings this year. It is a consensus that has proved resilient even as US equities have tumbled from post-crisis highs, falling for six weeks in a row. A stuttering US recovery, disruption to… Continue reading Shockingly, Analysts Predict Record Earnings Per Share
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The New York Times – Robert J. Shiller: The Sickness Beneath the Slump Professor Case and I have conducted annual spring surveys of home-buyer attitudes for many years. We ask about long-term expectations: “On average over the next 10 years how much do you expect the value of your property to change each year?” The… Continue reading The Soft Patch
MSN/Money – Bill Fleckenstein: Economy stuck in waiting room Talk of a recovery seems premature, as job, real-estate and budget woes continue to weigh on the economy. The path to a real recovery will be painful That sort of thinking is nothing but a rationalization by people who don’t want to believe the Fed is… Continue reading Will The Federal Reserve Come To Our Rescue One More Time?
The Financial Times – Lawrence Summers: How to avoid our own lost decade Even with the 2008-2009 policy effort that successfully prevented financial collapse, the US is now halfway to a lost economic decade. In the past five years, our economy’s growth rate averaged less than one per cent a year, similar to Japan when… Continue reading The Lost Decade
The Financial Times – US banks to cut Treasuries use Some of Wall Street’s biggest banks are preparing to cut their use of US Treasuries in August as a precaution against any turbulence that could follow if warring Republicans and Democrats fail to increase soon the US debt ceiling, a senior bank chief said. One… Continue reading The Debt Ceiling & Treasuries
The Wall Street Journal – Subprime Debt’s Siren Call Prices for the riskiest mortgage-backed securities have fallen so much in recent weeks that some money managers are starting to talk about returning to the market, despite expectations of a softening economy and increased supply. An index of subprime bonds got at least a brief reprieve… Continue reading Subprime Debt
The Big Picture (blog) – Barry Ritholtz: Shiller: More Expectations Theory, Less Efficient Market Hypothesis Bob is far too diplomatic to be blunt, so I will do it for him: Economics failed. The entire profession took a theory that had some value to it, and extrapolated it to the point of magical thinking. How badly… Continue reading Economic Theory
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg Businessweek – Nickel Plunging Into Bear Market on Biggest Glut in 4 Years At a time of scarcity in everything from crude oil to copper to corn, nickel is heading for the biggest glut in four years, driving prices lower into 2012. Next year’s surplus will rise to… Continue reading Nickel
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Greek Default Would Not Destabilize the Euro, Bundesbank’s Weidmann Says Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann raised the pressure on governments to agree to a Greek bailout without the European Central Bank taking part in easing the country’s debt burden, saying the euro can withstand a default. Weidmann said… Continue reading A Greek Default Would End The World, Weidmann Did Not Get The Memo
Bloomberg.com – Robert Wilmers: Small Banks, Big Banks, Giant Differences There are reasons for bankers like me to view these as good times. Bank profits are up and failures have ebbed. Nonetheless, I remain troubled about the state of the financial-services industry. Here’s why: community banks have given way to big banks and excessive industry… Continue reading Big Banks vs. Small Banks
The Wall Street Journal – Rattled by Lehman—Again Nearly three years after its collapse threatened the global financial system, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. can still move markets. This time, it is the battered municipal-bond market. The firm charged with winding down the estate of the bankrupt Wall Street firm has been looking to sell a… Continue reading The Ghost Of Lehman Still Haunts The Market