Credit Writedowns

I have been running this poll since January. We have over 2000 votes, so I am ending it. Here are the results:

The US: autos Last month I wrote one daily on the auto sector’s effect on non-recession reading. The gist of that post was that the auto sector was positively influencing both production and employment, helping the US avoid outright…

Ireland was hit hard by the financial crisis in 2009 - before Greece and Portugal came on the scene. It took a complete recapitalization of the banking system via "bad bank" structure called Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) that…

As the Eurozone recession (which started months ago) worsens, the area's manufacturing activity, as measured by the PMI index, is contracting at a pace not seen since 2009. A great deal of this decline however is now driven by Germany…

Everyone seems to be talking about Mario Draghi these days. They think his comments about the ECB doing "whatever it takes" are important. They're not. They are meaningless. Here's why.

"Positive Housing News Keeps Rolling In," exclaimed the headline of a July 24, 2012,Wall Street Journal story by Steven Russolillo. The author found much to praise. One gloomy Gus could not help but conclude otherwise. Teke Wiggin…

The 172k rise in July private sector payrolls was well above the consensus forecasts and the best showing in 5 months. Hourly earnings rose 0.1% and the work week was unchanged. After a string of disappointing news this is surely,…

Like Pavlov's dog, the market is conditioned to rise whenever investors see the possibility of central bank moves toward ease. This is true whether we are talking about the Fed or the ECB. The problem is that we have been gradually moving…

Robert Shiller sees telltale signs of new bubbles forming in some of the former bubble markets. He mentions Phoenix and San Francisco as two notables.

Both the equity and the credit markets are betting on US housing recovery.