Credit Writedowns

The Treasury Department is considering a plan to halt the slide in home prices that would lower mortgage rates using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The plan could reduce rates for newly issued loans to as low as 4.5%. Slowly, but surely, the…

One feature that is peculiar to the present downturn is the accumulation of reserves at the U.S. Federal Reserve. I imagine it is no different at other central banks, though I have not seen the data. Let me tell you what this reserve…

The U.S. Dollar has been holding up quite nicely during this credit crisis. In fact, it rallied significantly from deeply oversold levels against the Euro and British Pound (remember Dollar-Euro at 1.60 and Dollar-Pound at 2.10?). However,…

Below is a chart of variable rate loan applications as per cent of total. This can be looked at from a contrary opinion point of view, that is people are afraid of variable rate loans after they got burned on the upside in the last…

Yesterday was a good day in the markets, all in all. However, a number of anomalies still exist which we hope to cover in the coming days. Fist, there has bee an unprecedented rally in U.S. Treasury securities which some are calling a…

A friend sent me a mock-up of an application for the free money the U.S. government is handing out in its bailout program. Very funny. Sign up for the EZ-Cash. (Hat-tip Scott)

Back in September, during the depressing days after Lehman collapsed, I posted a few mindless videos as distractions of the day to get your mind off of Finance. I'm a day late because the markets rallied pretty nicely today. But, in honor…

The US and the global economy are at risk of a severe stag-deflation, a deadly combination of economic stagnation/recession and deflation. Only very aggressive and co-ordinated policy actions will ensure the global economy recovers in 2010…

I don’t understand the lack of imagination in DC. All the politicians have to do is tell the banks to lower their variable rate mortgage loans on the books to 4% right now, today or else and it is like $600-$750 billion of stimulus. With…

As interest rates in the developed economies approach the zero bound, we must begin to ask ourselves how effective monetary policy can reasonably be in these circumstances. And if policy is to be effective, which policy tools will be most…