United States

Economic data has been of tertiary concern to the market recently, overwhelmed by the drama in Europe. Given that the drama may die down, with new governments in Greece and Italy, the economic data may become somewhat more important.

This video is about the Chinese view of America’s budget battles. The US congress has until November 23rd to figure out on how to reduce its public debt. If it doesn’t, eventually mandatory budget cuts will go into place. As a result, Guan…

A breakdown of Friday's numbers with net loss and gain by key industry.

There is much truth to the generalization that European banks took on direct exposure to European sovereigns through the bond market, while top banks took exposure through selling insurance, primarily CDS, on the sovereigns. The latest BIS…

The BoJ announced today that it will expand its asset purchase programme by JPY5trn (USD66bn), with all the purchases being directed at JGB's. Add that to the GBP75bn (USD120bn) by the BoE, CHF50bn (USD57bn) by the SNB and the EUR341bn…

The public has been seeing their (per-capita) "slice of the pie" contract now for six months, and no amount of well spun "sluggish growth" can alter their view of a shrinking reality.

Today's durable goods orders data lends credence to our projection of fairly robust Q3 US GDP after the dismal 0.8% expansion in H1. The durable goods report is the third important piece of data that should encourage economists to look for…

A statement by the Bank of England on market liquidity to be provided in co-ordination with other major international central banks.

This is a temporary tax proposal to demonstrate solidarity in tough times. It reminds me of the solidarity tax Germans paid to deal with their reunification.

In America everyone has been bellyaching about the S&P ratings downgrade like its an affront to the greatness of America. This is absolute rubbish. It’s pure denial and economic nationalism. Do you think the Germans would threaten to…