2012

Bloomberg News allegedly has an e-mail demonstrating that Jon Corzine, MF Global's CEO, gave “direct instructions” to his underlings to transfer $200 million from one customer account to another account in order to meet an overdraft in one…

The daily links and commentary is a bronze-level post. Quick thoughts: This past week made it abundantly that Europe is slowing fairly dramatically. A number of countries have entered recession. I have been saying since October that Europe…

Here's another appearance by Bill Black spoke to RT's Lauren Lyster this past Wednesday about regulatory action in the MF Global case.

The three-year loans will carry an interest rate initially of the benchmark rate of 70 bp.

We received a phone call over the weekend from a close friend and someone who reads our comments religiously. He had a question for us. He wanted to know if we were still in the secular bear market camp or have we thrown in the towel since…

The market has shrugged off the disappointing euro zone PMI to take the euro to a marginal new high for the week, and again mapping transversing the range of about $1.3140-$1.3500. Sterling too rose through yesterday's highs, albeit…

This daily commentary is a bronze level post. Today, my comments go to warning signs in the economic data about the global economy slowing down. Lots of links on this topic as well.

The shockingly weak euro zone flash PMI, especially the sub-50 reading for German manufacturing, is the main focus today. New orders have been weak and the Bloomberg consensus does expect the euro zone economy to contract not only in Q1 but…

So far, we must give Chinese authorities the benefit of the doubt and it is almost certain that they will now turn from a focus on inflation to a focus on growth. This is particularly the case as inflation has come down significantly in…

The theme of the day is one of economic weakness. New Zealand GDP (0.3% q/q vs. 0.7% prev), HSBC China PMI (48.1 vs. 49.6 prev), euro zone PMI composite (48.7 vs. 49.3 prev), and UK retail sales (-0.8% m/m vs. 0.6% prev ex-auto fuel) all…