June 2008

Today, the Home Builders Federation came out to ask Mervyn King and the BoE to cut rates 50 beeps. The Telegraph reports:Housebuilders are urging the Bank of England to cut interest rates when it makes its monthly decision tomorrow,…

Knowing when to invest is just as important as investing at all. When one analyzes the returns in the market over longer periods (5+ years), it becomes obvious that certain periods of investing are much less lucrative than others. We are…

Yesterday, in a post entitled "De-leveraging," I argued that credit writedowns and the resulting deleveraging are highly deflationary. This is the core of the problem with the global financial system. I want to expand a bit on that…

Are we headed for a crash in commodities like the one in 1987 in equities? I doubt it. But, I am concerned that the commodities bubble is getting well out of hand. Certainly, the rationale for commodities as an inflation hedge and in a…

Because of the potential end to the long Democratic primary season, a monster admission is getting zero play in the press: Bush spun climate findings. After Scott McClellan's damning allegations on Iraq, this seals the deal, showing the…

Remember when you used to hear pundits say "'Buy and Hold,' that's the ticket to shareholder wealth?" Is that really true? I have put this thesis to the test over a number of years and it just doesn't hold water. Bear markets are always…

Financial News Soros: Oil Is a Bubble, But Crash Not Imminent Toll Brothers (TOL): Another Lousy Quarter, But At Least Bob Toll Stopped Blaming Media Merrill's Rosenberg: Stagflation Talk is "Utter Nonsense"…

John Mauldin is an economic pundit I have been following for a number of years. He not only writes a weekly newsletter that is very informative but he also has many guest writers of equal note. Yesterday, he had Michael Levitt of HCM…

The Globe & Mail is reporting that Lehman Brothers might have to go back to the capital raising trough again in order to shore up a leveraged and risky balance sheet. In the face of yesterday's credit downgrade by S&P, this sounds…

Global financial institutions are deleveraging because they can't build enough equity capital any other way except by going to Asian and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, cap in hand. So, the Fed and the Bank of England (BoE) have…