Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
“If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works, and we do not, as some do, sit idling over a gambling table or gossiping on doorsteps never swept, letting the fields grow to weeds and our children go half fed!�
– Pearl S. Buck (from the character Wang Lung in Buck’s novel The Good Earth)
[Read more...]Let’s see, what happened this summer? Easy question. The recovery went missing.
Ben Bernanke said so last week…or almost. He noted that the economy wasn’t quite as spiffy as he had hoped and that the Fed stands ready, willing, and able to provide more help.
The stock market liked the news. After falling for many days, it rallied 164 points on Friday. Gold was flat.
[Read more...]US stocks have been teetering on the top of a wall for weeks. Someone should give them a shove!
But yesterday, the Dow rose 103 points. Gold was up $2.
This leaves investors hoping, wondering, waiting for another day. “Maybe I can make some money in the stock market, after all,� say the mom & pop mutual fund buyers. “I gotta stay in this market; it’s going up,� say the pros.
[Read more...]What were they doing down by the pond?
The Dow was flat yesterday. Gold rose $9 to $1,226.
Has the dip in gold already come and gone?
We were expecting lower stock prices…and lower gold prices too. Both went down earlier in the summer. But neither went down as much as we expected…nor stayed down.
[Read more...]Bill Bonner here at The Daily Reckoning writes that Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of America, is the author of the now-infamous “Welcome to the Recovery� piece he wrote for The New York Times, which I meant to read, and tried to read, but I could only get part way through it before getting visibly upset with such self-serving, lying, sophomoric qualitative excuse-mongering.
[Read more...]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.
[Read more...]The big news yesterday was that the Fed decided to do about what we expected – not much.
Bloomberg has the report:
Federal Reserve officials decided to reinvest principal payments on mortgage holdings into long-term Treasury securities, making their first attempt to bolster growth since March 2009 to keep the slowing US economy from relapsing into recession.
[Read more...]Too much stuff.
People come to think what they must think when they must think it. With stagnant incomes, towering debts, and no real hope of increasing their purchasing power, they’re beginning to think that they don’t need so much stuff.
“Rethinking the pursuit of happiness in a recession,� is a headline from The New York Times. The article talks about people who live quite happily and comfortably with little stuff and little income. One couple has an income of $24,000 per year – and no debt. They make a point of having 100 personal items – or less. They could earn more money, but they don’t need to. Because they are no longer supporting so much stuff.
[Read more...]The stock market still has further to fall to catch up with the slowing economy. US GDP will keep decelerating – likely approaching a zero percent growth rate by 2011 – for the following reasons:
1. The long-term trend back towards consumer frugality and higher savings rates remains in full force. This will dampen consumer spending.
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Why US Retail Sales Are Up Even as Consumers Deleverage
We were curious about what would happen yesterday. The market sold off on Friday. The question was: are investors rejecting Ben Bernanke and his printing press money?
Another big drop in stocks yesterday would have confirmed the rejection hypothesis. A big increase in stock prices would have suggested that investors were on board with QE.
[Read more...]Click for detailed story