President Obama's Jobs & Competitiveness Council makes proposals to boost jobs, including cutting red tape for construction, encouraging training for manufacturing through partnerships between the private sector and colleges, and making it easier for tourists to visit the U.S. [View news story]
"The debt level of the U.S. is disastrous," says Eurogroup chief Juncker, scratching his head over why the EU is the "epicenter" of sovereign debt worries. Is he not aware of the U.S. privilege of being able to create the money to service its debt with just a few keystrokes? [View news story]
EUR and USD solvency are both questionable, but my bet is on EUR collapsing first. Our consumers are the envy of the world, so the big producers want to keep us afloat for as long as possible...
Cullen Roche says the Fed missed the mark in dealing with the financial crisis: It's never been about Wall Street, but Main Street - a classic balance sheet recession. Debt-laden consumers were turned on their head when prices collapsed. Now, with households in savings mode, the only possible hope for salvation is public sector spending. [View news story]
Both Wall St and Main St suffered from poor balance sheet disease. That was then, now it's just Main St stuck in the malaise. I guess it's a matter of picking your poison: Who gets subsidized at whose expense?
It's been a nice rally, Treasurys, but it's time to bet against the government, Anthony Mirhaydari says. It's not just the usual suspects (ending QE, inflation pressure, the debt ceiling), but currency effects from a building euro - itself backed by ECB rate hikes - that will weigh on U.S. government bonds. [View news story]
One thing to consider is that keeping Treasury rates low is now a matter of national security. The U.S. government would quickly go insolvent if rates jumped past some nominal threshold. I'm guessing the powers-that-be would do everything to keep that from happening.
Tough to bet against the umpire who makes the rules...
Laszlo Birinyi sees the S&P rising 60% in the next few years, knocking aside bearish arguments that are "not been based on solid foundations... When you have a market that begins like this market did, doubling in the first two years, those are not the kind of markets which are of limited duration and limited price.” [View news story]
I tend to agree. Pricing stock markets in USD opens unlimited upside to nominal prices!
Amazon (AMZN) cuts ties with affiliates in Connecticut ahead of the July 1 imposition of a state tax on online purchases. The so-called "Amazon tax" was expected to generate $9.4M in revenue, but the company's move means the measure may be a net loser to state coffers. [View news story]
AMZN is certainly making a statement, which is great! But I'm afraid they'd have to capitulate if more states join the pillaging bandwagon.
Ugly chart of the day: When priced in gold, the median price of a single-family home is down more than 80% from its 2001 peak, to a level last seen in 1980. [View news story]
Any takers on what a decent equilibrium point would be for housing:gold ratio?
Remove distressed sales and home prices increased 0.7% in April, according to CoreLogic, the first M/M increase since mid-2010. Picking and choosing can lead to pretty much any result. Distressed home sales are still sales and overall prices continue to fall. [View news story]
Parsing the data between distressed and normal sales will show variations, but the markets are invariably coupled, highly correlated. Normal sales can't skyrocket while depressed homes in the same neighborhoods plummet. Both need to have excess inventory absorbed for either to move appreciably higher.
Cyber-Attacks and War Declarations: Which Companies May Benefit [View article]
Our entire military machine is now based on integrated networks for everything from geo-location, weather, comms, precision targeting, and intel, to throw out just a few examples. U.S. Achilles heel is increasingly becoming the domain of cyber warfare. The threat is real, and it is being actively honed in on by rivals.
Spattering your portfolio with a handful of these defense companies might not be a bad idea.
Building a 'Permanent Portfolio' Using ETFs [View article]
Suggestion: Add to portfolio a few protections against catastrophic events like treasury, or equity, collapse. Trading a few percentage points in return for black swan protection seems to be making more and more sense these days...
Short term political incentives align oh so well with Krugman's spend-and-pray theory. Activist politicians need to show they are doing "something," and it helps to buy votes in the process.
New Home Sales Continue Run of Disappointing U.S. Data [View article]
The powers that be can manipulate any asset class they'd like, for a while. They can distort capital allocations, incentivizing one asset over another, and shuffling costs and risks across the population.
Given government's obsession with nominal housing prices, I wouldn't be surprised if this presented itself as hyperinflation's Achilles heal...
Continue to Lower Your Home Price Expectations [View article]
These economists might be right if we're only looking at nominal prices...well, assuming the Fed can get the right mix of currency dilution to make everything look better!
President Obama's Jobs & Competitiveness Council makes proposals to boost jobs, including cutting red tape for construction, encouraging training for manufacturing through partnerships between the private sector and colleges, and making it easier for tourists to visit the U.S. [View news story]
Commercial and Industrial Loan Growth Accelerating [View article]
"The debt level of the U.S. is disastrous," says Eurogroup chief Juncker, scratching his head over why the EU is the "epicenter" of sovereign debt worries. Is he not aware of the U.S. privilege of being able to create the money to service its debt with just a few keystrokes? [View news story]
Cullen Roche says the Fed missed the mark in dealing with the financial crisis: It's never been about Wall Street, but Main Street - a classic balance sheet recession. Debt-laden consumers were turned on their head when prices collapsed. Now, with households in savings mode, the only possible hope for salvation is public sector spending. [View news story]
It's been a nice rally, Treasurys, but it's time to bet against the government, Anthony Mirhaydari says. It's not just the usual suspects (ending QE, inflation pressure, the debt ceiling), but currency effects from a building euro - itself backed by ECB rate hikes - that will weigh on U.S. government bonds. [View news story]
Tough to bet against the umpire who makes the rules...
Laszlo Birinyi sees the S&P rising 60% in the next few years, knocking aside bearish arguments that are "not been based on solid foundations... When you have a market that begins like this market did, doubling in the first two years, those are not the kind of markets which are of limited duration and limited price.” [View news story]
Amazon (AMZN) cuts ties with affiliates in Connecticut ahead of the July 1 imposition of a state tax on online purchases. The so-called "Amazon tax" was expected to generate $9.4M in revenue, but the company's move means the measure may be a net loser to state coffers. [View news story]
Ugly chart of the day: When priced in gold, the median price of a single-family home is down more than 80% from its 2001 peak, to a level last seen in 1980. [View news story]
Remove distressed sales and home prices increased 0.7% in April, according to CoreLogic, the first M/M increase since mid-2010. Picking and choosing can lead to pretty much any result. Distressed home sales are still sales and overall prices continue to fall. [View news story]
Cyber-Attacks and War Declarations: Which Companies May Benefit [View article]
Spattering your portfolio with a handful of these defense companies might not be a bad idea.
Building a 'Permanent Portfolio' Using ETFs [View article]
G20: The New Ideological Divide [View article]
McCormick Boosts Shareholder Value [View article]
New Home Sales Continue Run of Disappointing U.S. Data [View article]
Given government's obsession with nominal housing prices, I wouldn't be surprised if this presented itself as hyperinflation's Achilles heal...
Continue to Lower Your Home Price Expectations [View article]