Economy

This just in from the Globe & Mail via Reuters:Standard & Poor's in a sweeping move Monday that rocked markets cut ratings on a number of major U.S. securities firms including Lehman Brothers Inc. and said outlooks on the large U.S.…

Royal Bank of Canada joins the list of financial institutions sued by clients over the large losses associated with the credit crisis.The Globe & Mail reports:Royal Bank of Canada has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit in New…

This is a story I caught over at Michael Panzner's site this morning. Apparently Paramax, a hedge fund, entered into a swap arrangement with UBS based on the value of a subprime CDO back in February 2007. Under the terms of the swap, the…

The Times reports today that Bradford and Bingley was rescued from the verge of collapse by private equity investors. This follows their report at the weekend on the dismissal of the Chief Executive and the profit warning they have issued.…

Below are only the latest writedown stories from the web as of June 2nd. If you are linking in from DailyKos and looking for the full timeline of writedown news and the credit crisis, visit my credit crisis timeline, the most comprehensive…

The President of the Boston Fed, Eric Rosengren, has in effect said that small and regional banks are at risk in the next wave of writedowns for U.S. financial institutions. He sites construction loan exposure in particular as a place to…

This in from the Times today: Bradford & Bingley is in big trouble. They are trying to do a rights issue and issue a profit warning at the same time. Can anyone tell me how one gets shareholders to pony up another 88p to buy a stock…

I don't trust the U.S. government's inflation number for measuring real GDP. The annual rate of inflation in this measurement is only 2.2%, while the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is running at a 4.0% clip. That's as large a differential as…

The GDP number was revised upwards from 0.6% growth to 0.9% growth. However, what is most interesting is the GDP implicit price deflator. This is the index number the BEA uses to get from nominal GDP to real GDP, the inflation-adjusted…

Bloomberg News reported that German retail sales for April were disappointing for the second month in a row. Retail sales growth is negative in Germany, adjusted for inflation.The reason: inflation. Consumers in Germany are losing…