Economy

Exports are still falling on a year-over-year basis, but at a slower pace. Imports are still rising, but here too the pace is slowing. The swing into trade deficit for Japan happened from both sides. Exports were squeezed by the…

This weekly newsletter is a gold-level post and follows up on my prediction early last month about 2012 being a period of margin compression in US companies, threatening the rally in stocks and mandating a rotation in investment style or…

In this issue of the newsletter I want to sketch out a scenario in which rather than analyze policy announcements or make predictions I try to lay out what are the various possible paths open to China. The scenario concerns trade. China’s…

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) in the U.S. increased 2.9 percent in February before seasonal adjustment. These BLS charts and table illustrate what is driving the increase.

Yves Q. Smith spoke with Lauren Lyster on RT's Capital Account show this past Wednesday about Wall Street and Goldman Sachs. Her view is that the points highlighted by Greg Smith in his Op-Ed in the New York Times about Goldman Sachs are…

The most sensational, inspirational celebrational, muppetational... This is what we call the MUPPET SHOW!

Chris Whalen is a highly regarded banking analyst who has been quite critical of the goings on with banks and their regulators. However, he is very even-handed in his assessment of the Fed's latest stress tests of the largest 19 banks.

This is a gold level post for members only.

The average interest rate for a savings account today is 0.45%. It wasn't that long ago that one could easily earn 5% in a well-chosen savings account, like those offered by ING Direct, or bump that up by a point or two by putting money…

Whatever happened to fuel switching between natural gas and diesel? The switch from diesel to natural gas is one of the biggest types of fuel switching in transport. You see this with all the buses now running natural gas instead of diesel.…