Author

Edward Harrison 7783 posts 575 comments

Edward Harrison is a senior Editor at Bloomberg. He is also the founder of Credit Writedowns newsletter, a former career diplomat, investment banker and technology executive with over twenty five years of business experience. He speaks six languages and reads another five, skills he uses to provide a more global perspective. Edward holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College.

News

Links: 2009-01-15

Edward Harrison Jan 15, 2009

This will be a bit longer of a preamble. Despite my bearish calls, I am feeling a bit tense about all of this market turmoil. Almost all of my calls are going the right way: oil, bank stocks, the general market, gold, Treasuries. Currencies…

Political Economy

Tendencies of irrational behavior

Edward Harrison Jan 15, 2009

Economics and finance are slowly coming to grips with the fact that human beings are simply not rational. The boom-bust cycle that we are now living gives us a front row seat to that irrationality. Below is a video by Dan Ariely that is…

Economy

U.S. unadjusted jobless claims fourth highest in history

Edward Harrison Jan 15, 2009

This past week, jobless claims in the U.S. soared as they always do after the holiday season. For the week ending Jan. 10th, initial jobless claims were 524,000, up 54,000 from the prior week. However, this figure is completely distorted…

Economy

Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund loses $125 billion

Edward Harrison Jan 15, 2009

In my book, losing a gargantuan $125 billion qualifies you as the dumb money. This appears to be what has happened at Abu Dhabi's leading Sovereign Wealth Fund. I had been warning all throughout 2008 that the Sovereign Wealth Funds were…

Political Economy

The ECB cuts rates 50 basis points to 2 percent

Edward Harrison Jan 15, 2009

The European Central Bank cut its benchmark rate 50 basis points (0.50%) to 2% because of weakness in the Eurozone. While a cut was widely anticipated, it was not known whether the ECB would cut 25 or 50 basis points. However, the cut of…

Economy

JPMorgan: Beats expectations despite writedowns

Edward Harrison Jan 15, 2009

JPMorgan Chase moved up its earnings announcement to today in order to surprise the market with better than expected earnings. The company reported full-year income of $5.6 billion and 4th-quarter income of $702 million or $0.07 a share,…

Economy

Meredith Whitney: “I would diversify out of financials here”

Edward Harrison Jan 14, 2009

The statements coming from Meredith Whitney in this video interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo could not be more blunt: the financial serves sector is weak, needs bailout money and investors will be diluted. As a result, she expects…

Economy

A brief note on upcoming bank earnings announcements

Edward Harrison Jan 14, 2009

Earnings season is upon us and I think it bears remembering that earnings season for banks has generally been associated with very bad news for banks over the past two years. Every earnings season is filled with surprise writedown…

Economy

Revisiting regional banks

Edward Harrison Jan 14, 2009

As you know from reading my blog, I am expecting a lot of writedowns from regional banks as real estate loans sour. In fact, I expect a number of bankruptcies because of defaults in commercial real estate where much exposure is hidden.…

Economy

Greece sees credit rating cut by S&P

Edward Harrison Jan 14, 2009

With the economy weakening significantly around the globe, the budgets of sovereign nations are coming under increased pressure. As a result S&P has put a number of countries under review for potential credit downgrades. However, now,…

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