There was a very interesting article in the Pimco Investment Outlook for December 2006 by Bill Gross entitled Reality Check. Gross talks about a new derivative credit product retailed to institutional buyers under the sticker known as a CPDO or “constant proportion debt obligation.” It is a very interesting conversations so let’s tune in.Things...
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Are we about to see a trend reversal in reality television shows from the likes of Flip This House to Maxed Out? I have not seen Maxed Out but I am positive it will be a welcome change over the current financial wizardry garbage telling everyone years too late how to make a fortune...
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I have a new set of posts from a friend living (and renting) in Key West who posts on my board on the Motley Fool under the name “FreeThinkerKW”. The first post is from a week or two ago, and the update to that post is from December 1. A Lit Fuse Every Friday...
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Reuters is reporting Brown, Paulson call for WTO progress. I must note that Mish has been calling for world peace for years but no reportable progress has been sighted. Is this a chicken/egg which comes first kind of thing (no free trade without world peace/no world peace without free trade)? While pondering that question...
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I was quite surprised to wake up this morning and find an Email from Ben Bernanke sitting in my inbox. It was in response to Bernanke’s Box. I wanted to share it with everyone. It seems the Fed is about to initiate a new policy of speaking exactly what is on their minds. The...
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The box Bernanke is in keeps getting tighter and tighter. First-time jobless claims Soar State unemployment benefits rose by 34,000 to 357,000 The number of U.S. workers applying for jobless benefits climbed by the highest amount in more than a year last week, to 357,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. First-time claims for state...
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MarketWatch is reporting Fed’s big worry gets revised away. A huge spike in wages and salaries in the second quarter proved to be an illusion, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Affairs.The revisions released Wednesday show that growth in unit labor costs (and therefore...
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I have been reading many claims in many places lately that “The Fed is pumping M3″. Others claim that Fed Open Market Operations (repos and coupon passes) are purposely being used by the Fed to fuel the stock market. Others still point to manipulation in gold. This post attempts to look at those claims....
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History is about to repeat in California as the State’s cash flood may be receding. It’s familiar: A handful of Californians make a killing on investments, and their tax payments send state revenues soaring. Lawmakers go on a spending spree, without a plan for paying the bills when fortunes turn. That was the late...
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Was it just last month that Greenspan and David Lereah at the National Association of Realtors were declaring a bottom in housing? That myth was shattered on November 17th when the Census Bureau released the Residential Construction Report for October 2006. Building Permits Building permits fell 6.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate...
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I have been listening to the spin by NAR spokesman David Lereah. The contradictions are nothing sort of amazing. In Looking for a Bottom on November 11th the Chicago Tribune quoted Lereah as saying: 1) “We need a price decline, we were overbloated”2) “In 2007, it will be a flat year, maybe 1 percent...
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Following is a post from a friend living in Key West.He posts under the name “FreeThinkerKW” on my board on the Motley FOOL, and rents a house in Key West. Here goes from FreeThinkerKW…. As longtime readers of this board know, I live in Key West where Real Estate tripled, quadrupled, and quintupled in...
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Bloomberg is reporting Manufacturing Growth Slowed in October Manufacturing in the U.S. expanded at the slowest pace in more than three years last month and construction spending unexpectedly declined because of a deteriorating housing market. The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index fell to 51.2, lower than forecast, from September’s 52.9. A reading higher...
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Last week Ramsey Su (one of my favorite posters on Silicon Investor) proposed and idea that the current rally in stocks is really just a part of “One Big Trade”. Ramsey Su: I had a conversation with a couple of fund managers yesterday and we drew one simple conclusion: The market is now just...
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