From the monthly archives:
Key News
* BOJ Holds Rates Steady, Extends Liquidity Measures (WSJ)
* European Consumer Prices Record First Annual Drop in June (Bloomberg)
* Bean Says Darling Can Lift BOE Bond-Buying Limit (Bloomberg)
* China’s Foreign-Exchange Reserves Surge Above $2 Trillion (WSJ)
The Event Agenda
The Morning Run-Down
The strong outlook for Goldman Sachs ignited a rally in stocks on Monday, and the [...]
As my Money & Markets article was getting sent to you, the total retail sales numbers for June were getting released. And if you look at just the headline … they rose a better-than-expected 0.6%.
What gives? Didn’t I say same-store sales stunk in June?
Yes.
The retail sales numbers released today include items like gasoline and automobiles, [...]
Hope everyone is having a decent Monday. One item that’s worth noting this afternoon is the latest budget update from the U.S. Treasury. Turns out the June deficit came in at $94.3 billion, the first time there’s been a deficit for that month since 1991. It’s also the largest June deficit ever. The year-to-date tally [...]
I said back when the Obama administration’s mortgage modification programs were being rolled out that they would likely NOT meet the ambitious expectations spelled out by policymakers. There are several reasons why mortgage servicers and investors are not as willing (or able) to modify loans as aggressively as the politicians want them to. A great [...]
So Alcoa posted a loss as expected, and everyone seems pleased with that result overall. (Not sure why.)
Overseas markets reacted positively, and futures are pointing up for U.S. stocks right now.
Yet June retail sales stunk. And while companies love blaming the weather, I’m not buying that as the reason. Heck, when it rains during the summer [...]
To all you currency market watchers out there, how about that yen/dollar exchange rate? The yen is flying against the buck, moving up by as much as 3 yen or so to 91.81 (The chart above shows the yen futures). On a percentage basis, this is the biggest gain for the yen that I can [...]
I’ve talked about my house hunting excurisions before … but this latest one takes the cake! And if you don’t believe that the housing bubble has more air to lose, well, you just aren’t out there shopping.
My wife and I had a few places on our list to check out, and the first two demonstrate [...]
The American Bankers Association just released its latest look at quarterly delinquencies for a wide variety of consumer credit products. Here’s a peek at what the group’s numbers showed:
* The composite index that tracks delinquencies on all products rose to 3.23% in Q1 2009. That was up ever so slightly from 3.22% a quarter earlier, [...]
A growing chorus of Wall Street pundits and Washington officials have now declared that the “great financial crisis is over.”
But it’s a myth. And all those who believe it are risking severe further damage to their financial future.
Ironically, it was only nine months ago, in September and October of [...]
Bloomberg has a great pair of stories on economic stimulus and the locus of economic power in the world. The first piece chronicles how Obama administration adviser Laura Tyson gave a speech urging a second economic stimulus package. She suggested the first stimulus was too small and that the economy “is a sicker patient” than [...]
