The Federal Reserve – Janet L. Yellen: Commodity Prices, the Economic Outlook, and Monetary Policy Let me now turn to a discussion of the sources of the recent increase in commodity prices. In my view, the run-up in the prices of crude oil, food, and other commodities we’ve seen over the past year can best… Continue reading Not Everyone At The Federal Reserve Wants To End QE2 Early
Comment Today is officially the day when citizens of the United States have earned enough money to pay this year’s tax burden. Any money earned for the rest of the year will theoretically go into the pockets of the wage earners as opposed to the government. As the charts below show, since 1900 Tax Freedom… Continue reading Happy Tax Freedom Day
<Click on chart for larger image> Zero Hedge (Blog) – The Fed Does Not Need QE3 And Can Fund Debt Monetization Merely From Rolling Debt And MBS Prepayments? Wrong Recently there has been a meme spreading in the internet that the Fed does not really need to do QE3 as the central bank can maintain… Continue reading The Necessity Of QE3 Still Being Argued
<Click on chart for larger image> The New York Times – Gas Prices Rise, and Economists Seek Tipping Point Gas prices are approaching record highs, but so far most Americans do not appear to be drastically cutting back their driving or even their spending as they did in 2008. The question, economists agreed, is what… Continue reading Gas Prices
The Financial Times – Reasons to be bullish in the face of adversity Since the third week of March, equity markets have rebounded sharply despite a number of negative factors. Many market participants are questioning the rationality of this recovery… Three key factors can be identified in rationalising the recent uptrend in equities; namely that… Continue reading Stocks Climb A Wall Of Worry?
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Spain on debt tightrope The evidence of previous eurozone sovereign debt crises suggests investors should now be nervously shunning Spanish government bonds after Portugal’s request for a bail-out. Yet exactly the opposite has happened. When Greece and Ireland needed rescuing last year, yields on Spanish… Continue reading Spain And Italy
Bloomberg.com – Japan Lifts Atomic Alert to Highest Level, Matching Chernobyl Japan raised the severity rating of its nuclear crisis to the highest, matching the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, as increasing radiation prompts the government to widen the evacuation zone and aftershocks rocked the country. Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency raised the rating to 7,… Continue reading Japan’s Nuclear Crisis, Now As Bad As Chernobyl
The Wall Street Journal – Editorial: Systemically Confused Even the regulators can’t agree on which firms pose a financial risk Should mutual funds and private equity shops be regulated as potential threats to the financial system? A battle over this question has broken out among Beltway regulators, but don’t expect any winners in this bureaucratic… Continue reading What Is A Systemically Significant Firm?
None Today
Comment Jim Bianco was on Yahoo Finance discussing Bernanke. To view the interview click on the picture above. To view any of our recent interviews click here. Bloomberg.com – Caroline Baum: Bernanke, Trichet Expose Their Respective DNA Two central banks look at the same underlying fundamentals, reach two different conclusions and take two different policy… Continue reading Discussing Bernanke
Comment Jim Bianco was on Yahoo Finance discussing the yen carry trade. To view the interview click on the picture above. To view any of our recent interviews click here. We discussed this in a comment on Friday, saying: We have been arguing (here and here) that recent G7 intervention and BoJ balance sheet expansion… Continue reading Yen Carry Trade Returns
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Inflation concerns lift gold to fresh peaks The global growth trade remains the favoured strategy, initially pushing many commodity prices and core bond yields higher, but leaving stocks struggling for gains as higher input costs raise concerns over corporate margins. Those inflation concerns were most… Continue reading U.S. Inflation Expectations … The Edge Of Acceptable?