investing

Most investors are expecting 2014 to be a good year economically and for this to translate into a good year for investing. But we have never been deep into a business cycle with rates at zero or with no chance of a Fed hike on the horizon.…

I have some interesting ideas on the eurozone regarding France, a housing decline and its divergence from the rest of Europe. But I am going to save that for a later post. Suffice it to say the German - French spread is widening; it is at…

As I was preparing to write my annual "Outlook and Forecast" for 2014, I read many different views from major Wall Street firms to get a general feel of the consensus. However, during the course of my research I read one piece of work in…

In 2012, I started the subscriber newsletter out with Ten Surprises for 2012. The goal was to give Credit Writedowns Pro subscribers a list of things that investors only assigned one in three odds of occurring that I believed had a fifty…

2013 has been a breakout year for Bitcoin, the virtual payment system. I haven’t written anything on it to date but I have been following the market. Here are some ideas on Bitcoin based on what I have seen.

The treasury yield curve remains quite steep by historical standards. Typically such steepness is driven by expectations of higher inflation in the future. But as discussed earlier, that is not the case in the US. Instead it is the…

US corporate credit is outperforming other forms of credit assets such as commercial real estate. A good way to see that outperformance vs. global risk assets is in the components of the Credit Suisse Risk Appetite Index. For the first time…

For the fourth quarter of 2013, 103 companies in the S&P 500 have announced negative earnings revisions. Only nine have disclosed positive profit assessments. The ratio of negative-to-positive, 11.4:1, exceeds the previous high…

Standard macroeconomic theory did not help foresee the crisis, nor has it helped understand it or craft solutions. This columns argues that both the New Classical and New Keynesian complete markets macroeconomic theories not only did not…

It was interesting to see the US markets follow through yesterday to the upside after a monster rally in shares when the Fed tapered large scale asset purchases on Wednesday. But rather than seeing strength in this, I see vulnerability…