Markets

Just after the unemployment claims number was released at 830AM ET in the U.S. markets took a sudden jolt down.  U.S. stock futures cratered, European stock markets fell more and Dollar-Yen and U.S. bond markets rose.  In fact,…

Related articles Dow Plunges 400 to Below 8,000 as S&P 500 Skids to 5-Year Low

Last week, I posted an article on why the recent rally did not look anything like a bull market titled "An amazing market rally. What's next?"o, it seems like I was bullish for all of two weeks. Yet, the truth is I was never bullish on the…

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the sometimes obnoxious writer of the "Black Swan" is now a fund manager. His fund focuses on hedging against "Black Swan" events that are deemed highly unlikely by purchasing thing like out-of-the-money puts.…

Canada has been one of the last housing bubble markets to crack. But, crack it has. The Toronto Real Estate Board reported that house prices crashed 13% from $434,022 on average last October to $376,896 this past October. With job losses…

While yesterday was a very positive day in U.S. markets, with the Dow up over 300 points, the real action has been in Asia. The Nikkei bottomed at a 26-year low below 7200 on October 27th. Today, it stands at 9114.60. That is a gain of…

When the Euro was formed, bond traders looked askance at Southern European sovereign debt, which trade at a considerable premium to debt from Germany, France and the Netherlands. In those days, the Southern European countries developed the…

This morning, the markets are looking wonderful. All the Asian markets were up with the Nikkei (Japan), Kospi (S. Korea) and Hang Seng (Hong Kong) up 10%+. The European markets were way up right out of the gate. And despite bad GDP…

The rate of decline in house prices in the UK is accelerating. Today the Nationwide released their monthly UK-wide figures on house prices and the numbers were fairly grim. House prices fell 1.4% in the last month alone, bringing the…

Just as Japan is starting to unwind its carry trade, a new one might be forming in the form of 1% base rates in the United States. The carry trade was very popular amongst Japanese retail investors, especially using leverage (see article -…