April 28, 2010 @ 2:00 pm | Leading Indicators |
This is exactly what I’m afraid of for the 12 months ahead. Yesterday’s numbers on home prices suggest that as the economic stimulus money gradually dries up over the next 12 months, the economic recovery will lose some steam. Not enough to send us back into recession...
April 28, 2010 @ 12:20 pm | Leading Indicators |
Economists and investment banks are starting to put some concrete numbers on the Greek—and Spanish and Portuguese—debt crisis. And they’re large. To me shockingly large. Kenneth Rogoff, a former economist for the IMF (International Monetary Fund) turned Harvard...
April 27, 2010 @ 4:51 pm | Leading Indicators |
We all know what happened today. Investors sold financials on worries that troubles at Goldman Sachs were getting worse and looked more and more likely to spread to other financial companies. The Greek debt crisis, which had looked ready to fade into the background,...
April 27, 2010 @ 12:57 pm | Leading Indicators |
You know that your country is in trouble when investors want 15% to buy your bonds. If you still needed confirmation of the depth of the Greek debt crisis, today Standard & Poor’s lowered its long- and short-term rating on Greek government debt to BB+ and B,...
April 27, 2010 @ 10:30 am | Breaking News, Leading Indicators |
The yield on 10-year Greek government bonds briefly hit 14% yesterday, April 26, before finishing at just 13.52%. That was an increase of 3.4 percentage points on the day. (Just for reference the total yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries is 3.75%.) So much for the...
April 27, 2010 @ 8:30 am | Breaking News, Leading Indicators |
“We have turned the corner,” Citigroup CFO John Gerspach, said when he announced Citigroup’s first quarter 2010 financial results on April 19. But I have to ask, What corner is he looking at? Can’t be the corner of 40th and Broadway near my office in Manhattan. There...
April 26, 2010 @ 6:51 pm | Leading Indicators |
Here’s a quiz? Name three technology companies that no one has ever heard of. Apple (AAPL) is a great technology company. So is Google (GOOG). Cisco Systems (CSCO). Intel (INTC). And I’m sure that everybody would put them at the top of their list. But how about these...
April 26, 2010 @ 12:51 pm | Leading Indicators |
It ought to be Rule No. 1 for any effort to fix a financial crisis: Don’t do it during an election. Politicians pandering to voters are likely to make a bad situation worse. Which unfortunately is exactly what’s happening in the current Greek debt crisis. The German...
April 26, 2010 @ 10:30 am | Breaking News, Leading Indicators |
So what about the rest of our money? Today General Motors is running ads patting itself on the back for repaying its taxpayer loans. “We’re proud to announce: We’ve repaid our government loan. In full. With interest. Five years ahead of the original schedule.”...
April 23, 2010 @ 4:24 pm | Leading Indicators |
The Greek deficit crisis could turn into a Lehman-type event capable of freezing the financial markets, according to a report today from Deutsche Bank. If Greece acts to restructure its debt at the expense of current bond holders, it could cause financial markets to...
April 23, 2010 @ 8:30 am | Breaking News, Leading Indicators |
It might be just coincidence that the SEC filed civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs (GS) in the midst of a contentious debate in Washington over legislation to reform Wall Street. But it’s sure as God made little green apple no coincidence that the SEC announced...
April 22, 2010 @ 1:42 pm | Leading Indicators |
She doesn’t show up by name in the charges of civil fraud that the SEC has brought against Goldman. But Reuters reported yesterday that emails written by Gail Kreitman, a Goldman Sachs bond saleswoman until June 2009, are cited by the SEC to show that Goldman misled...
April 22, 2010 @ 9:18 am | Leading Indicators |
Greece: It’s not so bad that it can’t get worse. Not exactly the slogan I’d use to rally investors to buy the bonds of a country overwhelmed with debt and deficits, but it’s one that fits the news out of Europe this morning, April 22. According to the statistics...
April 20, 2010 @ 1:14 pm | Leading Indicators |
The regulators keep turning the screws on the Chinese real estate market. After data showing that prices climbed at a record annual 11.7% rate in March, officials in Beijing know they have to do something. But they’re reluctant to take the big step of raising interest...
April 20, 2010 @ 10:30 am | Leading Indicators |
Who’s next? Now that the SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission) has filed a civil fraud suit against Goldman Sachs (GS), Wall Street’s favorite game is guessing which big bank the agency might name next. Some of the lists have no credulity at all—they’re simply...
April 20, 2010 @ 8:30 am | Breaking News, Leading Indicators, You May Have Missed |
Three cheers. Growth is back. Of course, what investors want to know is where is economic growth likely to produce the biggest increase in earnings. And, perhaps even more important, where hasn’t growth, actual or just hoped for, already been priced into share prices....
April 19, 2010 @ 5:08 pm | AMZN, Leading Indicators |
The Great Recession created quite a backlog in the technology sector. The average corporate notebook computer is now four years old, according to Needham & Co., and the average corporate desktop is five years old. That catch-up market is huge. One reason I own...
April 19, 2010 @ 1:46 pm | Leading Indicators |
After the recent rally in oil to $87 a barrel, an increasing number of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) members have started to cheat by pumping more oil than quotas allow. News today, April 19, that production from OPEC members increased 4.6% in...
April 16, 2010 @ 1:47 pm | Leading Indicators |
The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) today, April 16, charged Goldman Sachs (GS) with civil fraud. And the whole market has sold off. At 12:30 ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 162 points or 1.45%. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index was down...
April 16, 2010 @ 10:30 am | Leading Indicators |
I love a good dither. Especially when it’s cloaked in language that makes it sound like decisive action This morning’s headline in the Financial Times reads “Beijing acts over housing bubble.” Sounds like China did something significant to control an inflating asset...
April 16, 2010 @ 8:30 am | Breaking News, COF, Leading Indicators, You May Have Missed |
If you’d like to see somebody—lots of somebodies, if I had my wish–go to jail for their role in creating the lob al financial crisis, then $8 million looks cheap. That’s the budget for the Financial Crisis Investigation Commission. If, just for starters, some of...
April 15, 2010 @ 10:30 am | Leading Indicators |
In the first quarter China’s economy grew at an annual rate of 11.9%, according to official statistics released today, April 15. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting growth of just 11.7%. Remember the days when investors worried that a 10% growth rate would...
April 15, 2010 @ 8:30 am | Breaking News, Leading Indicators |
I wish I could be as optimistic about the first quarter results posted yesterday by JPMorgan Chase (JPM) as the stock market was. The market apparently focused on the 74 cents a share in earnings—a great big 11 cents a share above Wall Street projections. The stock...
April 14, 2010 @ 2:00 pm | Breaking News, Leading Indicators |
China isn’t the only developing economy facing inflation pressures. Economists are projecting that consumer price inflation in Brazil will hit an annual rate of 5.2% this year. That’s well above the government’s target of 4.5%. The central bank is expected to start...
April 14, 2010 @ 12:06 pm | Leading Indicators |
Sneak preview on China’s first quarter GDP and March inflation from Reuters today, April 14. China’s economy grew about 11.9% in the first quarter from a year earlier, unofficial numbers available in Beijing say according to Reuters. That would be above even the...
April 13, 2010 @ 1:52 pm | Leading Indicators |
Intel (INTC) reports first quarter 2010 earnings today, April 13, after the close. The market’s reaction to Intel’s numbers will tell us more about the market than about this technology stock. (For more on the prospects for earnings season as a whole se my post...
April 13, 2010 @ 12:00 pm | Leading Indicators |
For the next couple of days, at least, Jamie Dimon, CEO at JPMorgan Chase (JPM), is the most important figure in the U.S. financial industry. JPMorgan Chase reports earnings tomorrow, April 14, before the stock market opens. The consensus among Wall Street analysts is...
April 13, 2010 @ 9:00 am | Leading Indicators, You May Have Missed |
High dividend yields are showing up in some unexpected places. Like Asia. If you think anything like I did just a scant few months ago, you wouldn’t dream of looking to Asian stocks for high dividend yields. Most likely, you think of them like I did, as resembling the...
April 12, 2010 @ 5:27 pm | Leading Indicators, You May Have Missed |
Forget about iron ore. It’s old news. The global explosion in demand for that commodity and the huge 80% to 100% price increase that has resulted as demand outstripped supply and in the price of stocks such as Vale (VALE), BHP Billiton (BHP), and Rio Tinto (RTP.) The...
April 12, 2010 @ 1:30 pm | AAPL, Leading Indicators |
Palm, a pioneer in what turned into the smart phone market, has hired Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer, according to Bloomberg. Leading candidates, Bloomberg reports, are Taiwan’s HTC and China’s Lenovo Group (LNVGY). Lenovo recently repurchased its...