United States

No change. That's what we see from this week's jobless claims numbers. The 4-week average number is up 145,750 from a year ago. That's a bonus because three weeks ago this number was 166,500 and has fallen for three weeks on the trot.…

I won't be able to comment here until later today when I will update this post. But I wanted to report that U.S. GDP shrank 0.3% in Q3, less than the 0.5% median forecast. Now, when it comes to government statistics like GDP, the devil's…

Just as Japan is starting to unwind its carry trade, a new one might be forming in the form of 1% base rates in the United States. The carry trade was very popular amongst Japanese retail investors, especially using leverage (see article -…

The S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indices were released today. They showed a further decline in home prices in the United States through August 2008 (the data most recently available). In the year to August, prices dropped 17.7% for the…

As with everything else, the bailout of the U.S. banking system is going to have unintended consequences. One of them seems to be giving exactly those firms that wasted billions of shareholder money a chance to double down. Flush with…

The latest trend in the U.S. housing market is the move of problem loans from the subprime category and into Alt-A and prime mortgages. We have been sounding the alarm bells on this since about June. See the related posts below. However,…

I have felt for sometime that dollar strength is a counter-trend that has a sell-by date written all over it. You see, the Federal Reserve is ballooning its balance sheet like nobody's business as it tries to be the global lender of last…

I am hearing of heavy early voting in the U.S. presidential election. In particular, I have heard stories of heavy voting in Georgia, Colorado, Florida and North Carolina. Apparently, Colorado's exit polls show an enormous 20%+ advantage…

Jobless claims came in at 478,000 for the previous week, up from 463,000 the week before. But continuing claims were down 6,000 on the week to 3.720 million from 3.726 million.While the one-week continuing claims number is fine, all…

The U.S. Dollar is rising once again. As the realization kicks in that the U.S. will not be alone in its economic struggles, currency traders are making major bets that interest rates will fall outside of the U.S. across the board. The…