The Bernanke-led Fed … announced on Aug. 10 it will buy Treasuries to set a $2.05 trillion floor on its balance sheet and keep interest rates from rising. Trichet said Aug. 5 that the euro-area economy was surpassing forecasts, which may pave the way for the ECB to look at phasing out its emergency lending measures.
August 28th, 2010 | Nickolai Hubble | 0 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "bank"
Earnings Aren’t What They Used to Be, Part II
They just don’t make earnings like they used to. In many industries, the quality of earnings has deteriorated in recent quarters. Banks are among the worst offenders. On the downside of the biggest credit cycle in history, many banks are slowing the pace at which they’re provisioning for credit losses.
August 25th, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 0 comments | Continued
No Doubt About the Road Ahead
Another week gone by. Nothing has been learned. Nothing has been proven. Nothing has been decided.In the markets, we mean. It looks like the stock market is finally rolling over. After a big drop on Wednesday, the Dow followed up with a modest drop yesterday – down another 58 points. Is the market really headed down?
August 16th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
!$%*!?
Peter Wilby at The Age has come up with one of the most enraging reads ever read. There is so much wrong and outrageous about this article that we can’t even get to the point of analysing it. We have just provided some of the highlights, not that they do the article justice.
August 14th, 2010 | Nickolai Hubble | 3 comments | Continued
The “Road to Serfdom”
The US government is pursuing the same misguided strategy that has failed for twenty years to revive Japan’s economy. This strategy consists of squandering taxpayer dollars on failed financial institutions, and prop up unaffordable federal and state spending programs. One key difference: Japan’s competitive export-oriented manufacturing base was…
August 11th, 2010 | Dan Amoss | 3 comments | Continued
Nine Meals From Barbarism
It’s always a fun week when the big banks report earnings. This week it’s Commonwealth Bank (ASX:CBA), with NAB to give a trading update later in the week. What will CBA’s results tell you? Over the next month you’ll get to see how much the banks are actually hurt by higher funding costs, whether bad debts are rising, and if the housing market is causing them any trouble (loan losses).
August 9th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 12 comments | Continued
Incredible Threat
Last week, Mr. James Bullard was being both cagey and clairvoyant. The president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank noticed what everyone else has seen for months; the US economic recovery is a flop. GDP growth was last measured pottering along at a 2.4% rate in the second quarter, less than half the speed of the last quarter of ’09.
August 9th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 3 comments | Continued
Where Do You Stress?
The European stress tests continue to be discussed in the media. The irony is that the stress tests were intended to de-stress the markets. Instead, the response has been all over the place.There were the suspicious:”European Union stress tests found banks need to raise 3.5 billion euros of capital…
July 31st, 2010 | Nickolai Hubble | 0 comments | Continued
Let the Good Times Roll
Can you be a world dominating company when there’s inherently cyclicality and volatility in the underlying price of the commodity you produce? Or even more simply can commodity stocks be world dominators? If you accept the premise that you’re investing in a great transitional period in history where, generally speaking, standards of living are falling in the West and rising in the East, what Australian companies (if any) are in the best spot to dominate (or at least profit) from this trend?
July 27th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 6 comments | Continued
The Crisis Is Over
“The current outstanding balance of overall federal support for the nation’s financial system… has actually increased more than 23% over the past year,” wrote TARP inspector general Neil Barofsky this week, “from approximately $3.0 trillion to $3.7 trillion — the equivalent of a fully deployed TARP program…
July 24th, 2010 | Nickolai Hubble | 0 comments | Continued
Unusually Fed Up
Feeling besieged by the Welfare State? Tired of rising taxes, endless browbeating by unelected bureaucrats and insipid drivel in the news papers that passes for economic thinking? You’re not alone friend. You’re not alone. A big welcome to www.economics.org.au. We learned of the project when we were up in Sydney recently. If you’re interested in economics and more discussion on some of the ideas you find here in the Daily Reckoning, give the site a look.
July 23rd, 2010 | Dan Denning | 39 comments | Continued
When Animal Spirits Attack
Growing economies…growing people…growing anything…it all requires the proper spirit of enterprise. But life is not a theory. How you feel about something is how you feel about it. It doesn’t alter what the thing is. After all, what people are willing to pay for something is part of what prices communicate, and prices vary based on an aggregation of personal preferences (another miracle of the market).
July 14th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 15 comments | Continued
Side By Side We Stick Together
What is collateral, anyway? The Latin etymology suggests it is something standing side by side with something else, like Collingwood fans sticking together to defend the Magpie name. But in the financial world, we take collateral to mean property, or something equivalent, deposited with a creditor to guarantee the repayment of a debt. The collateral gives the lender security against the risk that the borrower is unable to repay.
July 13th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 12 comments | Continued
Where Do the Feds Get Any Money?
They have to borrow it…or print it. There’s a big difference between federal borrowing and private borrowing. When the private sector borrows the risk is that people won’t be able to pay back their loans.
September 9th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 11 comments | Continued
The Banks Should Hold More Capital
The US system of capitalism has become a system where the capitalists have no capital. The big banks have too little in savings…not enough ‘buffers’ to protect them from unexpected crises. They made a fortune during the boom years…
September 7th, 2009 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
