From the category archives:
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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There’s a great story at the Washington Post today about the interplay between retail spending and retail hiring. Specifically, the Post notes that because the holiday shopping season looks so grim, retailers aren’t doing much of the seasonal hiring they typically do this time of year. More below …
“This is the time of year when [...]
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What more can I say? The chaos continues. AIG is the area of biggest focus in the credit market, given the gigantic size of its portfolio and the risks it is facing. FromBloomberg:
“American International Group Inc.’s ratings cut drove the cost of default protection on Wall Street banks to a recordon speculation the insurer needs [...]
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I’m not going to sugarcoat this morning’s economic data. It stunk to high heaven. A few details:
- Q2 2008 Gross Domestic Product grew just 1.9%, below the average forecast for a 2.3% rise. Q1 2008 growth was reviseddown slightly to 0.9% from 1%. Moreover, Q4 2007 GDP was slashed to NEGATIVE 0.2% from positive 0.6%
- [...]
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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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Punch up a crude oil futures quote, ladies and gentlemen, and that’s what you would have seen a few moments ago for the
price of a barrel of black gold. Even the “see no
inflation, hear no inflation” Federal Reserve crowd
can’t seem to ignore this market action any more. Bloomberg just ran with a story called “Fisher [...]
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I never understood why Wachovia bought California-based Golden West Financial after the housing market was already showing signs of topping out. Golden
West’s star product is the option ARM, or “pick a payment” mortgage. A large percentage of those loans were made in
California, one of the states with the most bubbleicious housing markets. But acquire GDW [...]
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