From the category archives:
Remember that catchy 80s song “Talk, Talk“? That’s what I think of when I read stories like this. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner keeps blathering about how he’s concerned about U.S. borrowing and how he will — somehow — figure out a way to bring down the deficit over time. But it’s all just that — [...]
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It’s a massacre for U.S. assets today, with the Treasury Bond market getting crushed … gold flying … and the U.S. dollar tanking. Specifically, as I write, the long bond futures are off 2 13/32 in price. The yield on the 10-year Treasury Note is surging by 17 basis points to 3.36%. Spot gold is trading [...]
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We just got the latest look at jobless claims and once again, the numbers weren’t pretty. Initial claims came in at 631,000, above forecasts for a reading of 625,000. But the real news continues to be the fact that people who lose their jobs are not finding new work. Continuing jobless claims ramped up again [...]
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Forget the stress test. The big story in the markets today is the plunging dollar. The Dollar Index is getting crushed, down 1.27 points to 82.66 at last count. For you technically inclined readers, it’s also plunging through its 200-day moving average.
What’s going on? The positive read is that this move signals a return to [...]
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It’s hard to characterize just how nasty the action in the currency market is here. The Dollar Index got clubbed to the tune of 2.69% yesterday in the wake of the Fed’s monetization move. That is one of the biggest declines ever (the move against the euro was the worst since 2000). DXY is down [...]
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I’ve been hammering home a clear point for several weeks and months – there is no such thing as a “free lunch.” You can’t simply bail out anyone and everyone, especially when you’re a debtor nation, and expect your creditors to just grin and bear it forever. Click here for more of my views on this topic.
Now [...]
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Things keep getting curiouser and curiouser over at the Federal Reserve. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Fed is now considering issuing its OWN debt for the first time ever. As you probably know, the Treasury is the primary institution that issues U.S. government debt. More below on this very odd development …
“The Federal [...]
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Every day, it seems like events in some far corner of the world come back to haunt the markets. Many of us here inthe U.S. may not pay attention to these events, but we should. I talked about Iceland a while back, and how thatcountry’s currency, stock, and banking crises would have repercussions here in [...]
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If you think our credit market conditions are tight, get a load of what’s happeningin Iceland. The exchange rate of the Iceland krona against the U.S. dollar has plunged in recent weeks. Eachdollar now buys about 113 krona, up from 58 back at the recent low in November 2007. The krona has dropped 22%this week alone to [...]
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Good Monday morning to you all. Here’s a quick roundup of the headlines that are capturing my attention at this time
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* HSBC set aside $3.2
billion to cover bad U.S. loans. That sounds awful, but it’s actually below the $4.2 billion to $4.8 billion that
analysts polled by Bloomberg were expecting. HSBC got into subprime mortgage lending [...]
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