Bloomberg.com – Risk of 10% Stock Drop Tripled in a Month, Goldman Options Strategists Say The risk of a 10 percent U.S. stock slide by April tripled in a month, options prices show, amid rising oil prices that threaten the economic recovery and Japan’s biggest earthquake, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said. Standard & Poor’s 500… Continue reading Tail Risk Is On The Rise
The Wall Street Journal – ‘I Can’t Eat an iPad’ The Federal Reserve bombs in Queens The Federal Reserve has been on a media campaign to sell its monetary policy to average Americans, but this hasn’t always gone smoothly. Witness last week’s visit to Queens, New York, by New York Fed President William Dudley, who… Continue reading More On The Federal Reserve & iPads
Zero Hedge (Blog) – As Treasury Cash Drops To Just $14.2 Billion, And No Bond Auctions Until Next Week, Is America About To Run Out Of Cash? And so the US Treasury has hit the proverbial paycheck to paycheck sustenance level. After burning $12.8 billion (without a change in gross debt) in cash today alone,… Continue reading Is The U.S. Government Literally Broke?
The Onion (Satire) – Consumers Say Recession Changed Way They Blow Paycheck On Crap A survey released Monday by the U.S. Department of Commerce found the nation’s weakened economy has drastically changed the way consumers blow their paychecks on useless crap. The report suggests the lingering recession has forced Americans to make tough choices when… Continue reading Do U.S. Consumers Learn Cash Management From Their Government?
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Real-Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Number of the Week: Companies’ Cash Hoard Grows. $1.9 trillion: Corporate America’s cash U.S. companies’ cash hoard keeps getting bigger, a trend both good and troubling. After hitting new highs in five of the last six quarters, nonfinancial corporations’ cash and other liquid assets reached $1.9 trillion at the end… Continue reading The Myth Of Cash On The Sidelines Revisited
<Click on chart for larger image> Comment The chart above shows the Bank of Japan’s balance sheet. Expect it to soar in the coming weeks in the wake of the announcements below. Bloomberg.com – Japan Adds $183 Billion to Stabilize Markets After Quake The Bank of Japan poured a record 15 trillion yen ($183 billion)… Continue reading The Bank of Japan Prints Money
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Quake May Cost Insurers $34 Billion; Tsunami Toll Yet to Come European reinsurers slid for a second day on concern the global insurance industry may face claims of as much as 2.8 trillion yen ($34 billion) tied to the earthquake in Japan. Swiss Reinsurance Co., the world’s… Continue reading Earthquake Losses, Will The Japanese Sell Treasuries?
Real-Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – NY Fed Chief’s iPad 2 Comment Irks Queens Audience The iPad 2 may prove golden for computer maker Apple Inc., but, for one Federal Reserve official, its invocation was a lead balloon. New York Fed President William Dudley on Friday cited the new improved tablet as an example of the… Continue reading The Federal Reserve: Let Them Eat iPads!
Barron’s – Michael Santoli: Macro No More? The dominance of the so-called risk-on/risk-off macro trade may be coming to an end, at last. Also, Visteon is still a good bet. It’s enough to get contrarians’ antennae twitching. For a while before the latest Mideast eruptions, correlations among stocks had begun to recede, the market rewarding… Continue reading Two Views On Macro Trading At Barron’s
Bloomberg.com – William Pesek: Roubini Earthquake Gloom Meets `Shock Doctrine’ Temblors have a complicated place in the Japanese psyche. There’s a widely held belief, a local mythology, that tectonic- plate shifts can coincide with big ones above the ground, too. An 1855 earthquake that destroyed much of modern-day Tokyo bookmarked the twilight of the Tokugawa… Continue reading More On The Earthquake
The Financial Times – Saudi Arabia sends troops to Bahrain About 1,000 Saudi soldiers entered Bahrain early on Monday to protect government facilities following recent unrest by the country’s Shia Muslim majority, a Saudi official source said. “About 1,000 Saudi soldiers entered Bahrain early on Monday morning through the causeway to Bahrain,” the source told… Continue reading Saudi Arabia’s “Declaration Of War” In Bahrain?