Zero Hedge (blog) – Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System Enters The Death Spiral: AIG Wannabe’s Go-For-Broke Strategy Fails As Pension Fund Begins Liquidations Two few months ago we disclosed how the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) was doing all it can to become the next AIG. In addition to, or maybe precisely due to, its deplorable… Continue reading Illinois Teachers Pension Fund Goes For Broke
<Click on chart for larger image> Zero Hedge (Blog) – St Louis Fed Explains Why The Fed Has Cornered Itself Between Deflation And (Hyper) Inflation In its September Monetary Trends letter titled “The Monetary Base and Bank Lending: You Can Lead a Horse to Water…” the St Louis Fed analyzes the phenomenon that has all… Continue reading Inflation vs. Deflation
The Financial Times – Ireland angered by S&P downgrade Ireland on Wednesday criticised Standard & Poor’s after the credit rating agency cut the country’s long-term credit rating, causing Irish government bonds to tumble in early trading.John Corrigan, chief executive of the National Treasury Management Agency, a semi-state body which handles Irish debt auctions, accused S&P… Continue reading Ireland Is Downgraded And They Are Not Happy About It
Pimco.com – Mr. Gross Goes to Washington Americans now know that housing prices don’t always go up, and that they can in fact go down by 30%–50% in a few short years. Having grown accustomed to a housing market aided and abetted by Uncle Sam, the habit cannot be broken by going cold turkey into… Continue reading Bill Gross Speaks
The Wall Street Journal – Richard Barley: The 30-Year Of Living Dangerously Not all bonds are created equal. Investors should remember that as they are tempted to push further out the Treasury yield curve in search of higher returns. With two-year yields squeezed to rock-bottom levels and 10-year yields looking anemic, 30-year bonds are moving… Continue reading U.S. Treasuries
As the chart below shows, current Google searches using the phrase “double dip” have soared above its July 2 peak. July 2 also marked the recent stock market low (1022.58 on the S&P 500). The bottom panel of the chart shows an index of news stories using the phrase “double dip.” It has started rising,… Continue reading Historical Perspective On A Double Dip Recession
The Wall Street Journal – Fed Split on Move to Bolster Sluggish Economy The Aug. 10 meeting of top Federal Reserve officials was among the most contentious in Ben Bernanke’s four-and-a-half year tenure as central bank chairman. With the economic outlook unexpectedly darkening, the issue was a seemingly technical one: whether to alter the way… Continue reading The Inner-Workings Of The Federal Reserve
<Click on chart for larger image> Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Mortgage Refi Madness Packs Less Kick Than In The Past Investors’ flight to the safety of Treasurys has triggered one positive for the outlook: A rush by homeowners to refinance their mortgages to free up cash or shorten loan maturity. But Americans are… Continue reading Refinancing
Bloomberg.com – Caroline Baum: Asset Bubble Addicts Just Can’t Shake Habit You know market watchers are going through serious withdrawal when they start imagining bubbles everywhere they look. The latest candidate is the U.S. Treasury market, where prices have soared in recent months. Treasuries now offer yields ranging from 0.15 percent for a three-month bill… Continue reading Is The Bond Market In A Bubble?
Minyanville.com – Howard Simons: Why Bond Volatility Is Acting Abnormally Have bond traders lost the fear of their own shadows and decided to pursue getting paid back at par after paying a premium? Bond traders are funny people, sometimes intentionally so. While the one thing that will get a stock fund manager fired quickly isn’t… Continue reading Bond Volatility
The Financial Times – Lex: Price/Earnings multiples The problem with price/earnings multiples is that they are simultaneously spurious and essential. While a measure calculated by dividing a company’s market capitalisation by its annual net income has questionable predictive power, its ubiquity as valuation shorthand makes it hard to ignore. If investors are to join the… Continue reading PE Multiples