A couple of hours south of Kaikoura — and the most famous crayfish picnic tables on the South Island’s east coast (Nin’s Bin) — you’ll discover the fastest growing wine region in New Zealand; 80 vineyards sprawling across more than 1,200 hectares of picturesque plantings…
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German Factory Orders Drop
March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The “fear factor” has been reduced in the eurozone, as it appears that private investors are accepting their medicine, and taking their dose of the Greek bond swap. Societe Generale, France’s second-largest bank, and UniCredit have announced that they will accept the terms of the bond swap, along with a long list of other companies that too have announced acceptance of the terms. This flood of private investors announcing that they would accept the terms has lifted the fear factor for the euro (EUR) this morning. But by all means, that doesn’t mean the euro is out of the woods, folks.
[Read more...]Seeking to Explain the Market’s Dour Mood
March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Well, well… it’s a “risk-off” day in the markets. Let’s look at some quick numbers:
- All the major U.S. stock indexes are down at least 1%. According to Bespoke Investment Group, the last time the S&P opened down this much was Nov. 21
- Gold is down another 2%, to $1,671. Silver’s back below $33
What the Greek Rescue is Really About
March 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
In today’s Daily Reckoning, we’ll do something we can barely stand to do: we’re going to write one more time about Greece. If you can stand to read it, you may come to the same conclusion we reached.
That conclusion is simple: what’s going on Europe has nothing to do with solving a debt crisis and everything to do with preserving a corrupt system based on limitless debt and growing government power. The sooner you understand that fact, the sooner you’ll be able to prepare for what happens next. There are two options for what happens next, and we’ll get to those shortly.
[Read more...]US Dollar Settles Into a Trading Range
March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The currency markets rode out the rough waters of Wednesday and made it to a bit calmer seas yesterday. The dollar traded in a fairly tight range as reports released in the morning showed initial jobless claims remained just over 350,000, and continuing claims also remained steady. Both of these numbers were slightly better than estimates, but neither moved the markets.
[Read more...]The Role of Youth Unemployment in Staving Off Default
February 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The headlines still focus on Greece. It is broke. Here is Lucas Papademos, describing what an orderly default would mean. In the Telegraph:
“The savings of the citizens would be at risk. The state would be unable to pay salaries, pensions, and cover basic functions, such as hospitals and schools, and…the country — public and private sector alike — would lose all access to borrowing and liquidity would shrink.
[Read more...]A Greek Debt Crisis Recap
February 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Dow down 97 points yesterday.
And the Greek story nears its conclusion…
The Germans agree to bail out the country…at least for a while…
…and the Greeks agree to act more like Germans…at least while everyone is looking…
But now everybody agrees that the farce has gone on long enough.
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Greek Default Triggers Euro Weakness
Good day. Well, the ISDA people did determine that what Greece did last week — invoking the CACs (remember, collective action clauses) — meant that Greece was in default, so it triggered the credit default swaps (CDSs) to be executed. Now, I find this to be very interesting in that ISDA is a group of banks and financial firms, the same ones that wrote the CDS contracts. And you may remember me talking about the writers of these CDS contracts a few months ago.
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