Zillow.com – Huge Gap in Mortgage Availability: 1/3 of Americans Highly Unlikely to Qualify for a Mortgage Today, While Less Than Half Qualify for the Best Rates Borrowers with credit scores under 620 who requested purchase loan quotes for 30-year fixed, conventional loans were unlikely to receive even one loan quote on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace(1),… Continue reading This Is Exactly Why Lower Rates Don’t Help
The Wall Street Journal – Fed Mulls New Bond Approach Federal Reserve officials are considering new tactics for the purchase of long-term U.S. Treasury securities to bolster a disappointingly slow recovery. Rather than announce massive bond purchases with a finite end, as they did in 2009 to shock the U.S. financial system back to life,… Continue reading The Federal Reserve Hints At A New Approach To QE
Metro West Daily – Should investors be worried about a bond bubble? Unfortunately, when it comes to investing, you don’t know if you’ve encountered a bubble until it bursts. And at that point it’s too late to do anything about it. Bubbles are not a good thing. Remember the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble?… Continue reading Bond Bubble
Bloomberg Businessweek – Dow ‘Super Boom’ to Send Gauge to 38,820, Hirsch Says The Dow Jones Industrial Average will surge to 38,820 in an eight-year “super boom” beginning in 2017, according to Jeffrey A. Hirsch, editor in chief of the “Stock Trader’s Almanac.“All previous major economic booms and secular bull markets were driven by peace,… Continue reading Two Dow Forecasts A Mere 37,000 Points Apart
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Ireland, Portugal Stir European Fears Concerns over the financial stability of countries on the euro-zone’s fringe mounted Monday as one of Ireland’s largest banks had its credit rating cut and political tensions fueled doubts about Portugal’s deficit-cutting plans. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the senior… Continue reading European Fears On The Rise
The New York Times – Bank Losses Lead to Drop in Credit Card Debt The substantial drop in credit card debt in the United States since early 2009 has been widely attributed to newly frugal consumers. But analysts say that a significant portion of the decline is actually the result of financial institutions writing off… Continue reading Are Consumers Willingly Reducing Debt?
The Telegraph (UK) – Shut Down the Fed (Part II) We now learn from last week’s minutes that the Fed is willing “to provide additional accommodation if needed to … return inflation, over time, to levels consistent with its mandate.” NO, NO, NO, this cannot possibly be true. Ben Bernanke has not only refused to… Continue reading Stop The Federal Reserve
The Wall Street Journal – What’s the Matter With Wall Street? There are too many traders, bankers and salesmen to support the new level of business. Thanks to Dodd-Frank, the shrinking of finance will continue. What’s wrong with Wall Street? I don’t mean the painfully slow and dreadful new Oliver Stone movie. I mean the… Continue reading Does Wall Street Need To Cut Jobs?
The Financial Times – Hostilities escalate to hidden currency war Everyone has been thinking it, but Guido Mantega, the Brazilian finance minister, has been one of the few policymakers publicly to admit it. His assertion that there is a currency war going on follows a recent escalation of competitive intervention in the foreign exchange markets,… Continue reading Currency Intervention
Zero Hedge (blog) – From $44 To $4 In Less A Second: Today’s Flash Crash Brought To You Courtesy Of The Nasdaq And A Clueless And Corrupt SEC Today’s reverse engineered HFT algo strategy: if price drops more than x% in a millisecond, then enter order y% below bid, else pull all bids, especially when… Continue reading The SEC Makes Things Worse
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Comment Jim was on Bloomberg TV Friday talking about the economy and the markets. To view the interview click on the picture above. To view any of our interviews click here. The New York Times – Recessions and Recoveries Are Not All the Same In the old days — before 1990 — American recessions tended… Continue reading Odds Of A Double Dip