capital investment

I just picked up on a MarketWatch article about 401(k) debit cards through Tim Iacono's blog. It marks a pretty astounding trend in financial innovation.Debit cards are straightforward. You use them for purchases and money is deducted from…

You've probably heard the adage that the American consumer just won't quit. And this last month's retail sales numbers seems to follow that saying. However, if you look beneath the surface, American consumers are cutting back indeed.…

As you know, the CPI registered a whopping 5% yesterday. Year-on-year inflation hasn't been this high since the Gulf War. So much for the 'Great Moderation.' But the increase in inflation begs another question: why are interest rates so…

We knew that didn't we? Well, in response to a questionnaire by Nationwide, the building society, consumers basically said savings is not important and that they don't save as a result. I'm willing to bet UK consumers will change their…

One reason many pundits feel this particular downturn will be quite nasty is the level of debt consumers have versus their savings. Since July 1982, when the stock market bottomed, Americans have been dis-saving and leveraging up like…

From all accounts, it looks like Australia is set for a wicked slowdown. Four global industrial economies have been protected by commodity prices. They are Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. This Goldilocks scenario looks…

Zeitenwende, a German-language blog from Switzerland I subscribe to made a very good point this past holiday weekend after the Dow reached bear territory. U.S. investors had lost 20% on the Dow, but European investors would have lost much…

Here are some charts from the latest issue of Barron's. They have a readable article on bear markets (for those of you subscribed to it) as the Dow was down over 20% last week. That's supposed to mark the beginning of a bear market as the…

The well-deserved euphoria over the European Championship in football has brought welcome relief to Spanish consumers, weighed down by a slow economy. However, global economies have not decoupled from the U.S. slowdown. European economies…

Japan suffered one of the most horrific market meltdowns in history from 1984-2004. Only four years after the last market bottom and on the verge of another global market downturn, it even may be too early to use the past tense to describe…