From the monthly archives:
A few late-breaking developments worth noting:
Shares of Home Depot just broke below their January spike low. If you’re a technically inclined type, you might remark
that there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of support until the bear market low (around $20 way back in January
2003).
Meanwhile, Fortune Brands just warned about the deteriorating earnings outlook. [...]
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Yesterday was one of the nastiest days for the stock market in a while. And the market as a whole is on track for
its worst June since the Great Depression, according to Bloomberg. That’s not
exactly the kind of news you want to read while you’re drinking your coffee and munching on your bagel. But it [...]
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We just got May existing home sales data from the National Association of Realtors. Here’s what
the numbers looked like …
* Sales climbed 2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.99 million in May from 4.89 million in April. That
was slightly better than the average forecast of 4.95 million home sales. Sales were down 15.9% from [...]
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Some breaking news out of
Bank of America: The company plans to get rid of 7,500 employees after it consummates its deal to buy Countrywide
Financial. That’s expected to happen July 1 now that Countrywide shareholders have voted in favor of the deal.
Personally, I think this is one of the worst deals in the history of modern [...]
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The big story over the last couple of days continus to be oil. Yesterday, oil prices tanked by more than
$5 after China raised the domestic price of refined
products (gasoline, diesel, etc.). Why would that matter? The idea is that if more consumers have to pay the “real”
price of energy (China, Malaysia, Venezuela, and other
countries subsidize or [...]
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Forgive me if this post meanders a bit — there’s a lot of stuff that I feel like commenting on …
First, the newly-hawkish Federal Reserve may be having second thoughts, according to Robert Novak
at the Washington Post. From a column
that’s up on the Post’s website today …
“Bernanke, according to sources, disagrees more with the European [...]
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Fitch Ratings just took the axe to the ratings on several mortgage insurers and their related debt securities. Why?
Here’s an excerpt from the company’s release this afternoon (emphasis added in bold):
“Today’s announcement follows previous rating actions taken by Fitch within the MI industry on Feb. 25, 2008. Based on
further review of the U.S mortgage market [...]
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Standard & Poor’s just took the ratings and outlook axes to several leading banks and
brokers. From the firm’s release (here is Bloomberg’s take as
well):
“At the conclusion of its review of global universal and investment banks, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services
lowered its ratings on Lehman Brothers Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., and Morgan Stanley. Standard [...]
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