2013

News links for 28 February 2013

A reader of our blog here at Credit Writedowns recently wrote to me, detailing why Italians voted as they did in the recent general election. Her view speaks more to a rejection of corporatism and corruption than austerity.

Bill Gross' latest investment outlook is up at PIMCO and he echoes the theme everyone is now talking about - irrational exuberance. He goes into great depth, saying that we are at about 6 on a scale of one to ten when measuring asset price…

News links for 27 February 2013

I was on BNN this afternoon talking to presenter Howard Green and The Economist's Ryan Avent about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before congress today. You can read Bernanke's prepared remarks here and watch the video clip here.…

An investment in Microsoft has been dead money for quite a while now. The stock has traded in a pretty narrow range between $22 and $32 except in late 2007 and 2008 during the financial crisis when it spiked and then plunged. The stock does…

Commercial banks and savings institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reported aggregate net income of $34.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012, a $9.3 billion (36.9 percent) improvement from the $25.3…

France had pinned its hope that threat to EMU would be turned back before the wolf came it its door. The Italian political tensions come at the poor time for France. Its ability to absorb shocks is terribly constrained. Recall what has…

News links for 26 February 2013

The situation needless to say is very fluid and although the euro has stabilized, the threat to euro area stability is clearly evident in the debt markets where Italy's 10-year yields has soared 32 bp and the spread over Germany has widened…