(Roughly 2:00 into video) CNBC.com – Dennis Gartman: Brent-WTI Spread Won’t Exceed $20 Gartman said WTI is cheap, but isn’t a practical alternative to Brent. Stored in Oklahoma, it needs to be shipped to the Gulf of Mexico by railroad or truck before it can be put on a ship and sent around the world.… Continue reading The Cushing Crude Glut Continues
<Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Bank Lending From ECB Skyrockets Use of the European Central Bank’s emergency marginal-lending facility skyrocketed Wednesday, hitting its highest level in over 19 months, the ECB said Thursday. The ECB said banks borrowed €15.801 billion ($21.44 billion) from… Continue reading The ECB’s Marginal Lending Facility
The Financial Times – Yield-hungry investors should get real Look back at asset returns for 2010 as a whole and investors look to have had it easy. Equities, bonds and commodities all did well, with the S&P 500 returning 15 per cent, corporate bonds 9 and gold 27 per cent. But delve a little deeper… Continue reading Reaching For Yield
Bloomberg.com – Caroline Baum: Fat Lady Wanted as Aide to Fed Rate Setters There’s no canary in the coal mine to keel over, no fat lady to sing, no early warning system to signal imminent danger. Yet somehow the Federal Reserve will know when the time is right to exit from what it calls “the… Continue reading Will The Federal Reserve Know When To Stop Easing?
Kyle Bass Hayman Investor Letter February 2011
Bloomberg.com – Simon Johnson: Jamie Dimon’s ‘Biggest Disaster’ Is Waiting Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., has harsh words for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are “the biggest disasters of all time,” Dimon told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission last fall, according to his just-released interview…Too many bankers assert some… Continue reading What Does Jamie Dimon Really Think About The GSEs?
Charts of the Week Topics Covered This Week Include: WTI/Brent Spreads Widens More WTI/Brent Spreads Widens More – 2 WTI/Brent Spreads Widens More – 3 WTI/Brent Spreads – How Does This Get Resolved? Retail Gasoline Prices Ethanol: It Just Keeps Getting Worse Measuring Inflation Expectations Commodity ETF Update The Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet Why Are… Continue reading Untitled
Last week, in a post titled Why Crude Oil Prices Are Now Above $100/Barrel, we said: Events are causing NYMEX futures contracts that are delivered in Cushing Oklahoma to be very unrepresentative of world crude oil prices. Cushing Oklahoma is a landlocked crude oil market served by pipelines. The new Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta… Continue reading WTI/Brent Spreads Widens More
Bloomberg.com – Cash Hoards Shrinking at S&P 500 for First Time Since 2009 Corporate America is putting its cash hoard back to work. In the first decline since mid-2009, Standard & Poor’s 500 companies reduced cash and short-term investments to $2.4 trillion from a record $2.46 trillion, according to data Bloomberg compiled from their most… Continue reading Companies Are Spending Again
cnbc.com – Is the Wealth Gap Widening Under Obama, Bernanke? But sentiment among lower-income households dropped to 67.7 from 72.1 in January, trapped in a range it’s been stuck in since just after Obama’s 2009 inauguration. The president helped widen this gap by compromising on the Bush tax cuts with the Republicans in Congress, agreeing… Continue reading Is The Wealth Gap Widening?
<Click on chart for larger image> CNN Money – Don’t sweat rising mortgage rates The recent increase in mortgage rates means buying the median house consumes 14% of median income – up from 13% at the October low. That’s barely half of the 25% of income Americans were ill-advisely funneling into house purchases at the… Continue reading Rising Mortgage Rates