A Very Sharp Rise In Mortgage Rates May Damage Housing Recovery
It is not clear whether there is a housing recovery underway in the US. Home sales have, in some cases, picked up. Most of the activity has been due to low mortgage ratesm which have…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Media Digest 12/28/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: New airport security measures could hurt airline revenue. Reuters: US holiday retailers were up 3.6% according to one report. Reuters: A bankruptcy filing by JAL is possible to handle its financial crisis. Reuters: …
Asia Markets And Europe Open (12/28/2009)
Markets in Asia were mixed. The Nikkei was higher by 1.3% to 10,634. The Hang Seng was down .2% to 21,480. The Shanghai Composite rose 1.5% to 3,167. At the open in Europe, London…
“Unlimited” Support For Fannie Mae (FNM) And Freddie Mac (FRE)
The Treasury Department announced that it would give Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM)and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) “unlimited” financial support for the next three years, which seems like an awful lot. Some members of Congress said the…
Film Industry Economic Losses Mount From Continuing World Wide Piracy
First-run movie DVDs of films made by US studios are sold be vendors on the streets within a few miles of the central offices of the People’s Republic in Beijing. The Motion Picture Association of…
Toyota (TM) Increases Car Production Plans For 2010, Another Sign Industry Has Bottomed
The last two years were probably the worst in the history of the global car industry which goes back over a century. The markets in the US, Japan, EU, and UK were all eroded…
The Recession-Proof Movie Industry
Most of old media is being slowly euthanized by the shift in the way consumers get content since the beginning of the recession. Magazines, newspapers, and radio are at the top of list of sectors that are in this…
Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Is Its Top Selling Holiday Product Ever
The Kindle has become the most purchased item given as a gift in the history of the powerful e-commerce site, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN). And, Amazon announced that “On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more…
China Is Now The World’s Second Largest Economy
China became the world’s second largest economy in 2009, passing Japan, which has held this distinction for decades. The People’s Republic raised its growth forecast for 2008 to 9.6% from 9% which took the total…
Apple (AAPL) Hits All-Time High: Buy The Rumor….
Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares hit an all-time high yesterday as they rose to $209.35 up 3.5%. Most of the increase way due to rumors that the company will finally launch its tablet PC at a…
Financials Right Under Key Technical Alert Levels (BAC, JPM, WFC, GS, C, FAS, XLF, FAZ)
Earlier this week came an alert that a technical event was likely to be seen in the major money center banks and major financial institution stocks pertaining to the 50-day moving averages. After taking…
Today’s Best Market Rumors (12/24/2009)
Updated throughout the day. The CEOs of Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) are each expected to be rewarded with $4 million to $6 million pay packages (various). California may have to appeal…
A Gold Merger Fight for the Holidays (GG)
With gold up over $1,000.00 per ounce and with many pundits looking for much higher prices into 2010 and beyond, it has been a bit of a wonder where the gold mergers have been. …
Fewer Firings at Jobs Before Christmas
It seems that employers refrained from as many firings the week before Christmas this year. The data from the Labor Department showed that initial jobless claims fell by 28,000 to 452,000 in the week…
The Link Between The Economy And Oil Prices Strengthens
The link between the global economy and oil prices may have “de-coupled” in July 2008 as oil prices rose to $140 and the recession took hold across most economies around the world. Some of…
Large Numbers Of TARP Recipients Skip Dividend Payments
Almost all the very large financial firms that got TARP money have repaid it with Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) getting their money back to the Treasury just as the year ends. The TARP is…
Chavez May Push Car Companies Out Of Venezuela
Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president-for-life, has pushed major oil companies that would not pay tariffs to his government and give up some of their assets out of the South American nation. He recently began to…
Investors Ignore Securities Analysts
Wall St. firms have cut the number of securities analysts they employ since the scandal of 2000 when some professional stock pickers aligned themselves too closely with the M&A bankers who they worked with. Research was…
The Car Industry Dodges The Pay Czar
Pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, has been fairly consistent in giving only bare-bones compensation to management at firms that have taken TARP funds. Most executives are making less than $500,000 in base salary. Bonuses are…
The Whole World Moves To Texas
The Brookings Institution, The New York Times, and Bloomberg all covered the news that Texas added more people than any other state between July of 2008 and this past July, 479,000 according to the…