Credit Writedowns

The Telegraph is reporting that "house prices are now suffering their sharpest annual drop in 15 years, according to the latest survey from Halifax."See story.Related storiesHouse prices: Should the Government intervene?, Telegraph, 05 Jun…

Caroline Baum, one of the best financial reporters out there, has a new column today about the Fed. I recommend it highly. The article is about a new book by Robert Auerbach, Professor at the University of Texas, Austin called "Deception…

Economists have a way of coming up with more ratios and statistics than you can shake a stick at. True to my profession, I have developed a long-term yardstick of market overvaluation and undervaluation. I have no short-hand for it yet so…

Mish over at the Global Economic Trend Analysis caught a story in the FT about the possibility of banks being forced to put $5 trillion back on their balance sheets.The FT article says:Accounting changes could force U.S. banks to take…

Today, the Home Builders Federation came out to ask Mervyn King and the BoE to cut rates 50 beeps. The Telegraph reports:Housebuilders are urging the Bank of England to cut interest rates when it makes its monthly decision tomorrow,…

Knowing when to invest is just as important as investing at all. When one analyzes the returns in the market over longer periods (5+ years), it becomes obvious that certain periods of investing are much less lucrative than others. We are…

Yesterday, in a post entitled "De-leveraging," I argued that credit writedowns and the resulting deleveraging are highly deflationary. This is the core of the problem with the global financial system. I want to expand a bit on that…

Are we headed for a crash in commodities like the one in 1987 in equities? I doubt it. But, I am concerned that the commodities bubble is getting well out of hand. Certainly, the rationale for commodities as an inflation hedge and in a…

Because of the potential end to the long Democratic primary season, a monster admission is getting zero play in the press: Bush spun climate findings. After Scott McClellan's damning allegations on Iraq, this seals the deal, showing the…

Remember when you used to hear pundits say "'Buy and Hold,' that's the ticket to shareholder wealth?" Is that really true? I have put this thesis to the test over a number of years and it just doesn't hold water. Bear markets are always…