2012

FX intervention is certainly in the air this week for Latin America. Brazil stands out as the most aggressive, of course, as the central bank intervened in the forward market Friday and in the spot market Monday.

Here's the latest story that's been getting buzz around the internet: banks are trying to get troubled mortgages off their books without having to go through costly foreclosure processes and they are offering homeowners cash incentives to…

This is how it's going down in Greece right now. The sentiment is very Anti-German on the eve of the austerity/bailout decision. The debt haircut and writedowns coming of upwards of 50% is a default in everything but name. Technical default…

Looks like there’s a storm brewing in the U.S. repo markets. It figures: profit-center banks have every motivation to stay one step ahead of the regs and the pols. Since the gamekeepers have now gotten around to looking at proprietary…

There are still a lot of Dow Theory followers out there even after over 100 years. And the divergence between a bullish DJIA headline number and the lagging Dow Transports is bearish from a technical perspective.

The dollar is mixed against the majors and EMs but largely remains confined to recent ranges. The EuroStoxx 600 slid for a second straight day, currently down 0.5%; MSCI Asia index holds recent highs. Demand in Greek bill sale eased…

Greek Default: Why Now May Be Best Time to Do It - US Business News Blog - CNBC Last week in general gave life to the recovery theme, with 15 of 23 indicators beating expectations and causing some economists to raise their growth…

I have instituted a few changes at Credit Writedowns to which I wanted to alert readers. The changes were mostly for members but they affect all readers. I had heard from a few member readers that it wasn't clear where member content…

You saw the chart about two weeks ago on Developed economies’ debt levels by sector. Different economies have different debt problems. A few like Greece have public sector debt woes. And this is the sort of problem that forces a default…

The year got off on a much better foot than might have been expected, at least as far as global manufacturing is concerned. So the fall in global manufacturing has flattened out, even though the bounce back has more of a dead cat look about…