finance charts

A visual representation of how stocks in the S&P 500 fared in 2011 with Green for gains and red for losses

Wow! Who would of thunk it. The Dow the only major global equity index positive for the year. U.S. Treasuries up 15-20 percent, the dollar index (Dixe) positive; Brazil and Chinese equities down 20 percent and India down almost 25…

Great data from the BLS comparing hourly compensation for manufacturing. The second chart looks at the benefits component of the hourly cost.

Only three positive months in the last year. Lots of pain out there. Be charitable this holiday season, our friends. The return is tremendous.

Who says the ECB can't keep up with the Fed. As the euro crisis has caused liquidity for euro zone banks to dry up, the ECB has taken on the intermediation role. In essence, they have taken on the dollar liquidity function that the US money…

Now the bubble is visibly bursting. How much damage will it do to the Chinese economy — and the world? That is our homework assignment over the holiday. Getting it right will determine 2012′s investment and trading returns, in our opinion.…

A chart with a country by country breakdown of the over 100 billion euros of additional capital needed by euro zone banks

The guys over at Bespoke put out a great piece yesterday comparing the post-bubble performance of U.S. financials after the February 2007 top and the technology sector after the dot.com peak in March 2000.

The stereotype of lazy southern Europe and the hard working North is just not reflected in the data. We came across this BLS data set over the weekend which was very enlightening and, in part, smashes this widely held generalization.

Here’s a couple ugly charts we’re monitoring: China’s Shanghai Composite stock index and Commodity Research Bureau Index (CRB). Do you think there’s causality here? Remember the “China is buying/hoarding every commodity” story?