The Good News Economist's  Instablog

Asian economies could see a modest recovery next year, boosted by stronger export demand and stimulus spending, an International Monetary Fund report said Wednesday.

IBM and AAPL have now beat the street.  Oracle move on JAVA and appetite for risk is increasing with huge bond sale to California.  Asia and Europe markets and US stock futures are already higher going into Thursday.  If initial claims come in with a third week of declines, that could add some signficant fuel to the rally.

Wells Fargo took advantage of the drop in interest rates to issue more than $100 billion of mortgages in q1 2009. Revenue almost doubled to $21 billion, including Wachovia’s contribution, and helped the company overcome $3.3 billion of charges from unpaid loans. The allowance for credit losses totaled $23 billion, about twice the level of loans that have stopped collecting interest, Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins said.

“The allowance covers 12 months of estimated losses for all consumer portfolios and at least 24 months of estimated losses for all commercial and commercial real estate portfolios,” Atkins said.

“Our focus is on earnings,” Atkins said in the interview about repaying the government. “If we can keep on earning money, capital will take care of itself.”