Credit Writedowns

The US dollar is mixed after the broad dollar rally is losing steam into the North American open. The euro zone is on the back burner for now. Indeed, the recent back up in US yields over such a short time period has been astounding. Even…

Fitch Ratings released the following statement today in conjunction with their latest ratings action on sovereign debt issued by the United Kingdom.

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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 daily commentary is a bronze-level post. Barclays Capital has a US Macro Data Surprise Index and it was at all time highs in February. It has since dipped.

The FOMC did tweak its outlook but maintained its pledge to keep rates low through 2014. February retail sales were stronger than expected. Equities rallied sharply as a result and, more importantly, the US Treasury market sold off. With…

The following explanation of the recent Greek ratings action was posted at Fitch Ratings website.

This daily commentary is a bronze-level post. A lot of the data coming through in recent weeks shows the US recovery will continue for a bit. I caught two or three data points in the links today about this so I wanted to flag it for the…

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…