There may be a simple economic explanation for the best September on Wall Street in 71 years. No double dip recession…improving labour market numbers…rebounding house prices. Except none of that is true. So what is left? Well, as near as we can tell, everyone seems to be front running central banks. Is the Fed buying stocks? Not yet.
October 1st, 2010 | Dan Denning | 3 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "house"
Investing in Gold With a Watchful Eye On Mr. Market
What if the final stage of the bull market in gold has already begun? What if investors and speculators begin to panic out of the dollar now? What if they sell the rumor of quantitative easing…rather than wait for the real thing? What if they drive the price of gold up to the moon…
October 1st, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
Recession Officially Over… Someone Tell the Unemployed
Officially, the recession is behind us. That’s the good news. Officially, it ended in June of ’09. The bad news is – so what? Recession or no recession, people are having a hard time finding jobs and making ends meet. The US economy continues rumbling and trundling along.
September 24th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
Let it Be
Watch the bonds… We could be seeing the first crack in the bond market. But it seems too early to us. It seems more likely that the bond market will stretch this out…bringing more and more hapless investors on board before finally sinking. Everything takes longer than you expect.
September 9th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
Fed Vows to Maintain Public Financial Health
Extend and pretend…That’s the government’s way of handling the crisis. Extend credit and cash to those who don’t deserve it. Then, pretend that everything is okay…But the problems don’t go away. They just get stretched into the future…What did the feds do for GM? They took over the company.
September 6th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 8 comments | Continued
SSDD
It’s the same story, different day (SSDD). That is, nothing much has been revealed overnight to cause us to change our view that you’re investing in the midst of a long-term depression. Most of the positive GDP data coming out globally is backward looking. It doesn’t tell you much about the future. It is worth noting that a story in yesterday’s Financial Review showed that prices for coking coal have followed iron ore and coal prices down.
September 3rd, 2010 | Dan Denning | 135 comments | Continued
Healthy Correction or Ailing Recovery?
You’ll recall that when we left off last week, Ben Bernanke assured the world that while the recovery was not exactly what he had hoped for, he nevertheless had the situation in hand. He said he had the tools necessary to fix the problem and would do whatever was required.
September 1st, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 2 comments | Continued
Zen and the Art of Economy Repair
According to an article that appeared in The New York Times, written by Norihiro Kato, the Japanese have gotten good at sloughing off their worldly cares. Japan is no longer the world’s number two economy; it was eclipsed this summer by China. But the Japanese are used to slippage.
August 30th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 2 comments | Continued
The Idiots Guide to Repairing an Economy
Stocks went down early in the summer. We thought that was the beginning of the big “second shock” we’ve been waiting for. But we were wrong. The stock market rebounded. But now it is back at its July lows…and appears ready to keep going down. Why? Because small investors are leaving the stock market.
August 26th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
The Economic Recovery Flop
After 18 months and $2.5 trillion in counter-cyclical budget deficits, people have begun to realize that the ‘recovery’ is a flop. What they haven’t realized – yet – is why. But, it’s summer…no one is doing too much thinking now. Obama went for a vacation in Maine. Hillary married her daughter. Economists are fishing.
August 10th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
Fake Plastic Economy
Our guess is that it is both. What is most remarkable about this whole episode is that the people who are most responsible for it – in the sense that they caused it…and that they now pretend to fix it – still show no evidence of understanding what it going on. Geithner did mention that households were paying down their debts.
August 9th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 5 comments | Continued
House as Bank
It’s a given that increases in household wealth support higher consumer spending. For one, when people see their share portfolios or housing investments go up, they are, in fact, richer on paper. This may give them more disposable income to actually spend. Or maybe they just feel richer and spend more freely (the wealth effect).But one thing we recall seeing at the peak of the U.S. housing bubble is a massive increase in borrowing against home equity.
August 5th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 10 comments | Continued
Housing Market Sinks Beneath the Waves
Already, millions of people are underwater. As housing prices fall, millions more will slip beneath the waves. Some will go down with the ship. But many will take to the lifeboats – sending back the keys instead. This will add to the number of foreclosures and to the inventory of unsold and vacant houses.
August 2nd, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 40 comments | Continued
Money for Nothing and Cheques from Centre Link
High taxes are the main one. Low employment rates are another. Who works when you get your money for nothing and your cheques for free from Centre Link? Wait a minute. Low employment in Australia? Yup, “Australia’s employment rate – the percentage of the population with a job – ranks only 20th of the 27 rich OECD countries for prime-age workers” reports Tim Colebatch at The Age.
July 17th, 2010 | Nickolai Hubble | 3 comments | Continued
Another Pile of Bills to Pay
Our cousin was calling to tell us about a house owned by another remote cousin. It’s a beautiful place. Built in the early 18th century by a rich planter…
April 8th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | Continued
