2009

Jobless claims fell yet again last week to 467,000. And on the surface this would be comforting. However, the data are marred by seasonal adjustments. The actual non-adjusted data tell a completely different picture of a deteriorating…

The news today is about interest rates and the economy. First, in the U.S., there has been a huge move to the upside in Treasury yields. The obvious question is whether we are seeing the Treasury bubble burst. There are numerous reasons…

An issue that has received scant acknowledgment in the media is the likely hole in pension funds books resulting from the recent out in shares. Pension funds must invest the money they receive today in order to provide pensioners funds…

The credit default swaps (CDS) market is going to be a nightmare in 2009 because corporate bankruptcies are really picking up in the new year. The first major CDS settlement occurred yesterday and it was a near complete loss for sellers of…

This comes from Chapter VIII of Galbraith's classic volume, "The Great Crash 1929." Given the recent announcement of fraud at Satyam in India and the monstrous Madoff scandal, it is a quote and concept to remember.

ADP, the payroll data company, has shown that the United States is going to see an even larger loss of jobs in December than we saw in November when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its figures this Friday. The number ADP put out is…

If you have been having difficulty accessing the site, my apologies.  The site has been down for part of  the day both yesterday and today.  We are working to fix the problem.  As a result, we have revered back to the old look and feel…

The investing world started the new year in a really positive mood. Us, stocks for example are up nearly 20% from their 2008 lows just two months ago. However, there is a lot of work to be done as evidenced by the news flow from the real…

Update 07 Mar 2009: I am re-posting this in light of increasing evidence that Obama's stimulus bill was in fact too small. Paul Krugman has a good post today called "One-sided debate," which reminds us he made that argument but was…

The Ukraine-Russia row over natural gas has escalated to a new high. Now, state-owned Gazprom has completely cut off supplies to Europe through the Ukrainian transit route. It still remains unclear what the ultimate aim of the Russians…