Credit Writedowns

Links on Facebook, Cloudflare, trade and much more

The upward momentum for US stocks has broken. The S&P 500 closed below it's 200-day moving average for the first time since March 2016. Chief among the factors causing alarm was China's decision to retaliate against US tariffs. More…

Could public indignation at the Facebook profile harvesting scandal lead to new regulation that could impede the value of some tech-based advertising models? Will it lead to a consumer backlash that slows the growth of the companies…

The next phase in Italian politics has not been much of a market factor. Expect this phase to endure as the formation of a government should take a long time.

First, the recent post-Facebook scandal market volatility has seen Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google follow Facebook down. Second, Donald Trump is acting more boldly and more aggressively now on his economic agenda, on trade and on foreign…

Alarm bells should be ringing with New Jersey increasing the assumed rate of return. This is especially true since they are the most underfunded system in the country. Moreover, letting beneficiaries control their own investments is a…

Many consider the US and South Korea agreement the first success of President Trump's trade strategy. We are less sanguine. We do expect other countries to make concessions to the US grudgingly. But we are concerned the US will be…

Lots of links on Facebook. Also see notes on Tesla and GE.

Quick post here. I caught a tweet by Bloomberg's Lisa Abramowicz this morning noting that the yield curve was at its flattest since the Great Financial Crisis. Looking at the data, I noted that the 10-year bond is trading at only 49 basis…

In 2012, to protect user privacy, the FTC mandated regulatory controls at Facebook that it has not made. Therefore, Facebook faces potential fines and greater regulatory oversight. This will be expensive, and could potentially cause…