2010

This is the last formal North American Daily for the 2010. We will release a shortened holiday mode for the next two weeks and will return to full publication 01/03/2011. Happy New Year! Highlights The US dollar is trading on an…

Today Moody's cut the credit rating for the Republic of Ireland a full five notches down to Baa1 from Aa2. In addition, the ratings agency placed a negative outlook on its rating for Ireland , a sign that further downgrades could follow.…

by Comstock Partners After an 86 percent gain in 21 months the market looks overbought, overextended and overvalued. Furthermore the economy is unlikely to grow enough to reduce unemployment, lead the Fed to raise the funds rate or cause…

Fedex is often seen as a general proxy for US economic activity in the way that rail or freight traffic or cargo shipments are. They ship to such a wide variety of companies and individuals that they have taken on a bellwether status. …

“It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve - nor would it be appropriate —  to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions." -Ben Bernanke, 31 Oct 2007 via David Rosenberg's…

A BIG GOLD interview with John Hathaway, Tocqueville Gold Fund When John Hathaway spoke at the Casey’s Gold and Resource Summit in October, many of the audience came away feeling like they were listening to Doug Casey, with his contrarian…

Here are the key takeaways from Pimco's recent piece on Emerging Market debt: Key Points: Global economic conditions and structural factors remain supportive for the emerging markets to “run fast,” and for the U.S., Canadian and…

The dollar rally continued as US economic data continues to outperform, leading US bond yields higher.  US 2- and 10-year yields have increased by 17bp and 67bp over the past month and the rise in the 10-year to 3.51% is nearly a…

I liked David Rosenberg's Breakfast With Dave piece this morning. He got into QE2, bonds, Europe and Germany in particular. Let me hit on a few highlights here.  First, Rosenberg says the recent uptick in bond yields might put…

As we feared, Turkey central bank cut rates by 50 bp to 6.5%. Before the recent comments by Deputy Governor Basci, the bank was saying that rates were headed higher towards the end of next year. Latest central bank survey shows market was…