Consumer Confidence, Bad & Getting Worse
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index has just posted another large decline. The March readings came in at 64.5, which is well under what we had listed as 73.0 consensus estimates from Wall Street…
Economy
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There is growing concern about where the Fed will get the hundreds of billions of dollars it will need to bail-out failing banks and brokerages. Most economists point to the tax-payer as the ultimate…
Big Mergers For A Recession Economy
Many investors find it hard to believe that some of the largest companies in the country could be taken over and cease to be independent public companies. In a very deep recession, which the…
FOMC Goes Three-Quarters Of The Way
The FOMC has made its rate cut, although not quite as much as Wall Street was talking up. Wall Street wanted a 100-basis point cut or 1 full point. We got a 3/4-3/4 cut…
High PPI More Honest Than CPI, FOMC Has To Look Past It
This morning we saw February Producer Prices come out with a gain of +0.3%, and that is after a +1% gain in January. The core rate on an ex-food and energy basis rose +0.5%. …
What Stocks Aren’t Dropping, Much (MSFT)(GE)(CSCO)(INTC)(DELL)(QCOM)(AAPL)
For those intrepid enough to go into the market today, there are some stocks that are down under 1%. Some are even up slightly. A shopping list for the insane: Micrsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), GE (NYSE:GE),…
Asia: No Protection From US Financial Problems
Some bright person came up with the term "decoupling". It is meant to say that trouble in the US economy will not spread to the hot economies is Asia. Perhaps it gives them some…
Will The Fed Put Up $500 Billion?
The Fed has already provided a facility of $200 billion to banks to help them improve balance sheets by exchange some of their less-than-liquid and less-than-valuable paper for real honest-to-God money from the government.…
What If The Fed Only Cuts Half A Point?
"If wishes were horses, all the beggars would ride." The market expects the Fed to take rates down .75% this week. According to MarketWatch "After the Bear Stearns news, market bets that the central…
CPI Running Mysteriously Low
This morning the market got a recovery boost on lower Consumer Price Index "CPI" numbers that measure inflation. The problem is that they are almost unbelievable. Even CNBC commentators noted these may all be…
The Barney Frank and S&P Rally
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank announced new legislation Thursday that would increase the involvement of the Federal Housing Administration in the current crisis to help fight the rise of foreclosures. The legislation…
Only Mad Dogs And Economists Go Out In The Midday Sun
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.The smallest Malay rabbit deplores this foolish habit.–Noel Coward. A group of economists say the US should miss out on a recession this year. This…
Fed: An Emergency Rate Cut
The Fed may cut rates between now and its scheduled meeting on March 18, according to Goldman Sachs. The firm said it had previously expected the cuts to come later. Reuters reports "Goldman said…
Consumer Confidence Crashes
One of the key measures of consumer confidence fell through the floor. The RBC Cash Index dropped to 33.1 in early March, down from 48.5 in February. The figure was the worst since the…
An Idiot’s Guide To A Bad Economy
Today was the day the roof officially fell in on the US economy. News from Europe involving bank trouble at UBS (NYSE: UBS) and an inadequate rescue of Ambac (NYSE: ABK) helped push at…