From Staff Reports While central banks in the United States and Europe did their best to infuse their respective economies with liquidity, central banks in China and Japan were doing just the opposite. The People's bank of China last week sold $20 billion worth of three year treasury bills hoping to siphon off excess funds […]
Category
U.S. Economy
"Shocker" Jobs Report Brings Rate Cut Closer
In several of my economic-analysis reports leading up to – and immediately following – the address that U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke made at the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium a little over a week ago, I said that an interest rate cut that Wall Street had been clamoring for was far […]
Surprisingly Dismal Jobs Report Unleashes Its Fury on the Federal Reserve and Wall St.
By Jason Simpkins Staff Writer For U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and policymakers at the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee, the verdict is in. A mediocre – or even week – jobs report for the month of August might have been enough to secure an interest-rate cut at the FOMC's Sept. 18 […]
Online Shopping to Slow Over Next 10 Years
From Staff Reports More than a decade after Internet pioneer Amazon.com (AMZN) burst upon the scene and revolutionized online retailing, experts are projecting that Internet-based shopping is destined to fall out of favor. In the next five to 10 years, those who are already comfortable shopping online are likely to grow even more so. But […]
It Was a 'Wonderful Life' Before Wall Street Hijacked the Home Mortgage Market
By Martin Hutchinson Director of Global Investing Research If we travel back in time to the period from 1972 to 1978, we would find that the average "spread" between conventional 30-year home mortgages and long-term Treasury bonds was 1.09%. From that distant point, let's fast-forward to the stretch from 2000 to 2006. The "spread," then, […]
Fed's Bernanke is Pushing the Right Buttons
By William Patalon III And Mike Caggeso Money Morning News Analysis Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has taken a lot of heat for his apparent unwillingness to launch a pre-emptive strike on an economic downturn by slashing short-term interest rates – and the sooner the better. In fact, Bernanke has probably gotten more advice this […]
Guest Commentary: It's Housing - Not Earnings - Driving This Market
As I’ve been suggesting the past few weeks, the stock market is not out of the woods yet. Some investors find this perplexing. After all, economic growth is solid, inflation is tame, the Fed has cut the discount rate (and is likely to cut the Fed Funds rate on, or before, the Sept. 18 meeting) […]
Message to Bernanke: Don't Give in to Speculative Clamor
When Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke addresses the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, today (Friday), he’ll have to acknowledge that the risks to U.S. economic growth have increased – especially with the disruption to the credit markets and the tightening of credit in many areas. But Bernanke will also likely […]
It's Not Just The Credit Market Weighing On Bernanke's Decision
By Mike Caggeso Staff Writer In spite of the market turmoil of recent weeks, global economist Jay Bryson has a message for investors and consumers alike. Calm down, folks: It’s not as bad as it seems. In fact, Bryson even says the odds of a full-blown recession are unlikely. With the strong recovery in stocks […]
Low Consumer Confidence Unlikely to Motivate the Fed; Stocks Plunge
By Jason Simpkins Staff Writer Worries about the strength of the U.S. economy coupled with questions about the central bank’s willingness to intercede sent shares into an outright freefall yesterday (Tuesday), with the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding more than 280 points. The bellwether 30-stock Dow plunged 280.28 points – or 2.1% – to close […]