Should We Blame the Fed for Sub-Prime’s Woes?
By Chad Brand of Peridot Capitalist I just heard an argument about this and I think it’s extremely unfair to blame the Fed for the current crisis in the sub-prime mortgage industry. The rationale…
Economy
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Newest first · Page 421Inflation on the Come Back?
From Ticker Sense Over the last year and a half we have found that the ISM Commodities Survey has been an effective barometer of future inflation. When the number of commodities rising in price…
Are We Already in A Recession?
From Investment Intelligencer Recessions are not only hard to predict, they’re also sometimes hard to identify until after-the-fact. For example, as Dan Gross describes in this NYT piece, back 2000, very few economists saw…
Defensive Review of Debt Collection Stocks: Beneficiary of Sub-Prime Liquidity Squeeze
The companies that actually stand to benefit from the sub-prime implosion are the credit and debt recovery and collections companies, with some caveats of course. First, they will not do well if the sub-prime…
The Monday Edition: Global Macro Talk (US, China & ECB)
By Yaser Anwar, CSC of Equity Investment Ideas This week I’d like to discuss 1) Conflicting US Economic Data (weak ISM but strong wage growth) and 2) China’s Fuel (18% savings rate), ECB hike…
Kasriel: Consumer Spending To Tank
From Investment Intelligencer Northern Trust’s Paul Kasriel weighs in on the shrinking supply of U.S. equities (which, at least last year, translated into higher prices) and the outlook for U.S. consumer spending (bad). According…
Job Growth Slowing Down Fast
By William Trent, CFA of Stock Market Beat According to Yahoo! News: The U.S. economy added a modest 97,000 jobs in February, the smallest gain in two years, but job growth in prior months…
Should The Fed Set An Open Target For Inflation?
The head of the Philly Fed Bank, Charles Prosser, spoke out yesterday in favor of having the FOMC establish public, explicit targets for inflation to be used in guiding monetary policy. This re-opens a…
China Funny Money Becomes Big Business
In China they have a lot of "virtual" money. Consumers play online games and win the ethereal dough. But, it can be used to buy real stuff in the real world. So, the Chinese…
If Boone Pickens Is Right, There May Be A Recession
Boone Pickens told a Forbes conference that the easy-to-drill oil has been found and that production is, therefore, peaking. Based on his analysis, oil is going back to $70 a barrel this year. US…
Consumer Sentiment Dips, But Trend Line Remains Positive YoY
The Reuters/UM’s composite Index of Consumer Sentiment came in at a finalized 91.3 for February, down from a 96.9 reading in January that was essentially a spike from solid stock market gains in the…
ISM Manufacturing Index for February 2007; The PMI Returns to the Black
The Institute for Supply Management just released its monthly manufacturing Report on Business survey (the old PMI), and the results came in with a slightly-positive reading of 52.3, up from 49.3 in January. The…
Gross. Domestic Product.
By William Trent, CFA of Stock Market Beat BEA: News Release: Gross Domestic Product Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United…
Chicago NAPM shows contraction levels for second month
The NAPM’s regional Chicago report is the first glance investors get of macro-level data for the month of February. The index showed a level of 47.9 versus 48.8 in January, both figures in what…
Why A Negative Savings Rate Isn’t All That Worrisome
By Chad Brand of The Peridot Capitalist From the AP: Personal Savings Rate for 2006 Drops to Negative 1 Percent, the Lowest Level in 74 Years "The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings…