October 2008

The S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indices were released today. They showed a further decline in home prices in the United States through August 2008 (the data most recently available). In the year to August, prices dropped 17.7% for the…

A while back, as I scanned the wreckage of the market meltdown, the energy sector caught my attention. In particular, I noticed the refining and oil services sectors because they are not as beholden to falling prices as the Exploration and…

I ran across a very disturbing news item today that is getting a lot of press in Germany. Apparently, the leveraged finance community is getting routed at the German Automaker VW. The crux of the situation is that Porsche, which controls…

GOP 'mavericks' concerned with McCain - Politico In the past week alone, a handful of liberal, moderate and independent-leaning Republican officials have publicly announced they are supporting Barack Obama.Messy trial ends with a decisive…

As with everything else, the bailout of the U.S. banking system is going to have unintended consequences. One of them seems to be giving exactly those firms that wasted billions of shareholder money a chance to double down. Flush with…

The latest trend in the U.S. housing market is the move of problem loans from the subprime category and into Alt-A and prime mortgages. We have been sounding the alarm bells on this since about June. See the related posts below. However,…

Of the major currencies, the Japanese Yen has been the strongest in the last few months, while the Australian Dollar has been the weakest. These two currencies have also been the most conspicuous in the Japanese carry trade. That trade is…

You remember the furor in 2004 over the hackability of the Diebold voting machines? Well, that same worry is back in 2008 and apparently Homer Simpson has fallen prey. Watch the video. Hilarious. (hat tip Marshall Auerback). Related…

The recent movement in global markets has me scratching my head a bit. You have people dumping gold and the Swiss Franc in order to invest in the U.S. dollar and Treasury securities. Everyone says it is a flight to quality. I do not…

The set-up for this morning is anything but good. We are looking at another ugly day as global equity markets have plummeted. We would be lucky to escape this with a 300-point loss like Friday.