Markets

Marshall here, as Ed is busy sunning himself in the Bahamas, whilst I am stuck in snowy Denver! It sounds as if JMP Securities has also read the California report that I discussed recently. This is the first outside source that I have…

The Treasury Department is considering a plan to halt the slide in home prices that would lower mortgage rates using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The plan could reduce rates for newly issued loans to as low as 4.5%. Slowly, but surely, the…

Below is a chart of variable rate loan applications as per cent of total. This can be looked at from a contrary opinion point of view, that is people are afraid of variable rate loans after they got burned on the upside in the last…

I don’t understand the lack of imagination in DC. All the politicians have to do is tell the banks to lower their variable rate mortgage loans on the books to 4% right now, today or else and it is like $600-$750 billion of stimulus. With…

Marc Faber is a hard money, old school investor who thinks that the U.S. government is going to reflate in order to avoid depression and that means gold. But, for those of you who don't know economic history, the fact is that this has been…

Today the Nationwide released their monthly UK-wide figures on house prices and the numbers were better. House prices fell 0.4% in the last month, bringing the annual fall to 13.9%, down from 14.6% in October. Nevertheless, this is the…

James Montier, a market guru usually known as a permabear has turned bullish of late. In keeping with my bullish sentiments, I have posted his thoughts below according to Bloomberg News. That said, I should always qualify my…

The S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indices were released yesterday. Unfortunately, I was away all day and could not post. The indices showed a further decline in home prices in the United States through September 2008 (the data most…

The renowned money manager Jeremy Grantham has had his first television interview ever with Consuelo Mack on Mack's program WealthTrack. Below is the video from that interview. Mack has promised to make a longer video available to those…

Things were actually looking fairly good during midday given how horrible the credit markets (high yield, asset-backed and corporate) have become.  Sure, the bank stocks sold off, but the stock market in the U.S. was holding its own after…