Economy

This comes from French-language Swiss daily Le Temps: Over 50% of respondents in Geneva surveyed by the HEG School of Management believe that the bankruptcy of a large institution is likely. The Swiss political world is clearly…

On the back of a decent quarter at JPMorgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon has signalled his desire to repay government money as quickly as possible and remove the strings attached to that money.  Dimon has often said that JPMorgan Chase did not…

Jobless claims in the U.S. fell to a three month low of 610,000 on a seasonally-adjusted basis in another clear sign that fewer people are filing for jobless claims than early in the year.  Nevertheless, 600,000 more filed for claims this…

I am sure you have seen the catastrophic financial results of Swiss bank UBS released this week. I have been saying for quite some time that UBS is too big to fail, but also too big to bail for tiny Switzerland. In my view, the recent…

Jim Grant is definitely not in the deflation camp. He believes a robust policy response and enormous expansion in the Fed balance sheet is storing up monster inflationary forces which could take holding a recovery. As a result, he is…

John Hussman has a nice piece out named "Green Shoots over Thin Ice. (hat tip Scott)" Below is the core of his argument regarding the recent rally in stocks and the free gift to bondholders. I have bolded parts of the original to add…

This April 2009 post is holding up well and still describes my view on the economic situation in the United States. I am much more confident that the cyclical forces I described here are leading to a recovery. The question now has to do…

I am still away on Holiday in Mexico but have been checking the news and was not surprised to learn about the recent Wells Fargo announcement. I am coming off the fence here and looking for a bullish outcome on financial services. The…

The first time I wrote about the Baltics was back in August in a post entitled, "Are the Baltics the new Argentina?." Since then, things have gotten progressively worse and the Baltics are clearly in Depression with Latvia leading the way…

Despite the fact that I can envisage a cyclical upturn this Winter, the menace of bank writedowns is ever-present. One analyst who has been particularly prescient on warning on this front is Mike Mayo, now working at Calyon. Below David…