The Chicago Tribune – Gail MarksJarvis: As crude prices rise, so does anxiety about commodities and stocks Oil and stocks drop as investors fear that high oil prices are starting to crimp the economy Crude oil fell to about $106 a barrel — a steep decline compared with its price of almost $113 last week.… Continue reading Speculation In Crude Oil
<Click on chart for larger image> DailyFX.com – Guest Commentary: The Bond Market’s Crystal Ball Here’s how it works: The current five year Treasury bond has a nominal yield of 1.84 percent. The current five year TIP has a real yield of -0.57 percent. If we subtract the current real yield on the TIP from… Continue reading QE2 And Inflation
MarketWatch.com – Gasoline prices up 40% this summer, U.S. say Gas prices will jump 40% for the summer driving season compared with 2010, according to a federal projection released Tuesday. “The continuing economic recovery tends to boost gasoline and diesel fuel consumption, while the effect of higher retail prices tends to dampen it,” according to… Continue reading Gas Prices
<Click on chart for larger image> PrudentBear.com (Blog) – PIIGS ahoy! Even the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) among the EU countries were no more profligate than Britain and the United States in the years before 2010. The difference, according to the markets, was that those countries had no control over their own currencies,… Continue reading PIIGS
Reuters.com – Big banks are government-backed: Fed’s Hoenig The Kansas City Fed president has been a vocal critic of rescuing the biggest banks rather than allowing them to fail. He has criticized the Fed’s easy money policies in the wake of the crisis. There are slim chances his proposal to classify banks as government-guaranteed enterprises… Continue reading The Big Banks And Government Support
<Click on chart for source data> Cnbc.com – Inflation Actually Near 10% Using Older Measure After former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was appointed in 1979, the consumer price index surged into the double digits, causing the now revered Fed Chief to double the benchmark interest rate in order to break the back of inflation.… Continue reading What Would Inflation Be Using The Old Measure?
Rolling Stone – Matt Taibbi: The Real Housewives of Wall Street Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs? It’s hard to imagine a pair of people you would less want to hand a giant welfare check to — yet that’s exactly what… Continue reading The Real Housewives: Wall Street Edition
Bloomberg.com – Banks Face Sovereign Debt Scrutiny in EU Stress Tests Banks that fail the stress tests will have until the end of the year to complete plans to recapitalize or restructure their business, Enria said. If an institution is found to have “weaknesses in terms of its risk modeling, you intervene as a supervisor,… Continue reading EU Stress Tests
FOMC Minutes Word Cloud h/t The Big Picture Blog
The Financial Times – Lex: US budget: dysfunctional America There should be no need for drama over the US budget. After all, compared to other rich countries, the US starts out richer and faces a milder demographic challenge to fiscal solvency over the next decades… So why is the US government on course for weaker… Continue reading Interest On The Debt
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: Fed Plays Down Inflation Speeches Signal U.S. to Keep Credit Cheap as Others Tighten Top Federal Reserve officials sent a clear signal that the Fed is unlikely to follow the European Central Bank in lifting interest rates from rock-bottom levels anytime soon,… Continue reading The Federal Reserve Insists Inflation In Not A Problem
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Repo fee hits money market funds Hundreds of billions of dollars invested in money market funds face almost zero returns after sharp falls in short-term interest rates. The key interest rate for funding trades in US Treasuries fell to a tiny fraction of 1 per… Continue reading The Repo Carry Trade