credit

Over the past couple of years it has gradually become the consensus view that QE has failed because it hasn’t created the economic growth that everyone was hoping for. I find that view overly simplistic and naïve in equal measures. QE - or…

The higher demand for leveraged loans is helping to gradually increase leverage of buyout transactions. But a more alarming trend is the sharp relaxation of lending terms - the so-called "cov-lite" (covenant-light) deals. Over 70% of recent…

Newman: "in my own book the explanation starts the cycle with government spending, thus adding to the money supply, and then issuing treasuries for roughly equivalent amount. The bond vigilantes really have it backwards.

Five or six years ago, a few skeptics first started pointing out that the credit dynamics underlying Chinese growth was creating an unsustainable increase in debt. This, they warned, would ultimately undermine the banking system and cause…

"Not all government debt is created equal. We have bad deficits and good deficits. Good deficits are used to fund investments that will have a positive rate of return, properly determined. Those contribute to GDP."

The US dollar is narrowly mixed against major and emerging market currencies. Comments by House Speaker Boehner that he will form a majority bloc to avoid a default by the Federal government is being understood two ways.

It isn't yet clear how long the US government shutdown will last or what impact the shutdown will have. Nor is it clear that the US will escape a debt default down the road. Therefore, at this time all that reigns is uncertainty.

It is still too early for all of these predictions either to have materialized or to have failed, but I thought it might be useful to review them to see whether or not they have been reasonably accurate in describing unfolding events and,…

The first seven trading days of September have offered all of these markets some much needed breathing space with EM currencies, bond and equity markets all doing considerably better. It is thus tempting to conclude that this was just…

Something highly unusual is happening in the mortgage market however. Recently jumbo mortgage rates have been lower than conforming rates. This is one of those market dislocations that most would have never thought possible. Yet here we…