2008

Today, Fannie released horrible quarterly financial results. The company lost $2.2 billion and is now looking to shore up its capital base. Fannie said an estimate of its fair value of net assets was $12.2bn at the end of the first…

Updated throughout the dayMarketsMajor Asset Class 1,3,5,10 and 15 Year Returns - Safe Haven (05/06/2008)Why We Must Fix It - John Mauldin, Safe Haven (05/06/2008)Goldman's Murti Says Oil `Likely' to Reach $150-$200 - Bloomberg…

As with the GDP numbers last week, the employment numbers were very dubious indeed. The headline number was still a loss of 20,000 jobs. However, the detail point to likely revisions much beyond that number when more exact data have been…

This weekend I received a disturbing newsletter from John Mauldin, provacatively entitled " Lies and Other Statistics," that dissected the GDP numbers where the headline number was +0.6%. Digging into the detail reveals a completely…

Updated continuously throughout the dayMarketsWhy we can't cruise past a recession - Bill Fleckenstein: MSN Money (05/05/2008) Buffett Says Bond Insurers Don't Deserve AAA Rating - Bloomberg (05/04/2008)Downgrades Show…

MarketsBuffett says risk of financial meltdown has declined (MarketWatch, 5/3/2008)Warren Buffett: big is bad for banks (Times Online, 5/4/2008)US-Bankchef: Krise nicht ausgestanden (Die Welt, 5/4/2008)IrelandMortgage lending growth hits…

As I have mentioned in previous posts, the housing bubble was an international phenomenon. As a result, the U.S. subprime meltdown is indeed spreading beyond this limited sector. In the US, expect Alt-A and prime mortgages to feel the…

I caught an interesting letter to the editor at the New York Times. We really need to think about which alternative energy sources we use and this letter highlights the fact.Re “Bring On the Right Biofuels,” by Roger Cohen (column, The New…

While we all expected house prices to slow and even fall in bubble markets like Ireland, the UK and Spain, it comes as news to me that prices are slowing in Germany as well. I was just in Germany this past month, and while there were…

Recently, I have started to shift my focus out of the U.S. and abroad as the subprime crisis has become a global credit crisis. The myth of global de-coupling (assumption that other economies could thrive without the help of the American…