I haven’t written about investments for some time, feeling that I have no better insights than anyone else about what is sensible to do in this environment. The equity markets seem overvalued, the bond markets face at some point a rise in interest rates that will be bad for bond prices, and commodities seem to [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Interest rates'
All That Glitters Is Gold
November 5th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Federal Reserve, Global Economy, Gold, Interest rates, inflation
Tags:
A Tale of Two Depressions
June 8th, 2009 · No Comments · Analysis, Bonds, Debt, Economics, Economy, Federal Reserve, Global Economy, Interest rates, Stimulus, Stock Market, Treasury
The “Tale of Two Depressions” updates an earlier column (“up to April 2009) that graphically compared many aspects of global economic activity in the Great Depression and the recent past. The key findings of this comparison are: 1) many aspects of real economic activity are closely following the downward path of the Great Depression; 2) [...]
Tags:
The “Other” Markets Are the Big News – Bill Gross of PIMCO
June 7th, 2009 · No Comments · Bonds, Deficit, Economy, Interest rates, Stock Market
While most attention focuses on the stock market in the popular media, the big news of late has been in the bond and foreign exchange markets. Interest rates on government treasuries have been rising rapidly and the dollar has been plummeting equally rapidly. What is this about and what does it mean for the future? [...]
Tags:
Marc Faber an Optimist?
April 13th, 2009 · No Comments · Banks, Debt, Gold, Interest rates, Stock Market, Video, inflation
Marc Faber, the original Dr. Doom, an optimist? It sounds like an oxymoron. However, after being highly pessimistic for most of the last year, Mr. Faber now seems more optimistic than pessimistic about the direction of the world’s security markets. In a wide-ranging interview recorded by Bloomberg Television, Mr. Faber touched on a wide variety [...]
Tags:
Soros: Obama "Lost a Great Opportunity" to Fix the Banks
April 9th, 2009 · No Comments · Bailout, Banks, Debt, Dollar, Global Economy, Gold, Interest rates, Obama, Policy, Restructuring, Stock Market, Treasury, Video, Wall Street
Tech Ticker has posted a series of video interviews with George Soros, a fabulously successful speculator and a big investor in liberal/progressive causes around the world. One in this wide-ranging, very worthwhile series deals with the Administration’s handling of the banking crisis: George Soros was an early and avid supporter of Barack Obama, so it’s [...]
Tags:
Fed unleashes greatest bubble of all: John Kemp, Reuters
March 31st, 2009 · No Comments · Banks, Bonds, Debt, Federal Reserve, Global Economy, Interest rates, Policy, Stimulus, Stock Market, Treasury, Wall Street, deflation, inflation
[ Note: the following article is now 3-1/2 months old. The concerns it raise are as relevant and timely now as they were then. Federal Reserve debt projections have increased significantly since then.] Reuters Wed Dec 17, 2008 7:08am EST — John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own — Fed [...]
Tags:
Deflation or Inflation?
March 31st, 2009 · No Comments · Bonds, Debt, Economics, Federal Reserve, Financial, Global Economy, Interest rates, Policy, Treasury, Wall Street, deflation, inflation
This is an introduction to following posts on current government policies and their effects on future outlook for inflation versus deflation. "Why should I care?" would be an understandable response to this topic. Inflation/deflation seems pretty far removed from concerns about economic and/or financial collapse. In truth, though, they are very central to the policies [...]
Tags:
Obama Redeems Himself
March 30th, 2009 · No Comments · Bailout, Banks, Bonds, Corporate Power, Credit Default Swaps, Debt, Federal Reserve, Financial, Interest rates, Obama, Policy, Restructuring, Treasury, Video, Wall Street
In a recent post on the latest bank bailout plan, I took President Obama to task for not using the opportunity afforded by the dire financial straits of the banks to reduce their political and economic influence. I said, [I hoped that] Obama would bring a fresh perspective to managing our economy, one that would [...]
Tags:
Hedge Funds Betting on Housing Collapse May Get AIG Cash
March 18th, 2009 · No Comments · Bailout, Banks, Bonds, Credit Default Swaps, Debt, Default, Economics, Federal Reserve, Financial, Global Economy, Housing, Interest rates, Mortgages, Policy, Regulation, Stock Market
The Wall Street Journal has an article that describes in some detail how hedge funds and Goldman Sachs bet on the collapse in the US housing market using hundreds of billions of dollars of credit default swaps, swaps that eventually were bought by AIG for pennies per year. In the event, when the housing market [...]
Tags:
Recent Rates of Return versus Risk
March 10th, 2009 · No Comments · Interest rates, Risk, Stock Market
Pinnacle Advisory Group published an informative chart in their year-end Market Outlook. It graphically displays in a quantitative way what we all now know — returns on investment are related to risk — and 2008 was not a good year to be in risky investments. [This chart shows 3-year returns. If it were 2008 alone, [...]
Tags: