Shut Up!
The whining on Wall Street about the Fed decision is hurting my ears: “There are major divisions in the outlook at the Fed and the simplest thing to do was punt.” – Joel Naroff, Chief Economist, Naroff Economic Advisors “It’s…
Bernanke Puts His Foot Down
As I turned on CNBC before the market open this morning and continued to read and watch what people were saying, I began to realize that there was a lot more expectation for a 50 basis point cut than I…
Revisiting Ben Stein’s Vicious NY Times Article
“Why, then, is his document circulating? ….. To me, his paper seemed like a selling document in the real Wall Street sense of selling – namely, selling short. …… Here is my humble hypothesis …. : Is it possible that…
Is 25 Enough?
“A quarter point cut in the fed funds rate may not be enough for the markets.” – Bob Pisani, CNBC’s floor reporter at the NYSE, in a blog post “Fed: 25 Points Might Not ‘Cut It’ With Markets” When the Fed issues its highly…
WaMu Cuts Dividend, Sheds More Than 3,000 Jobs and To Issue $2.5 Bil Preferred Stock
Washington Mutual (WM) issued quite a press release after the close yesterday. Here is what they said they are going to do to shore up their capital base and their business: Cut their quaterly dividend from 56 cents to 15…
Maybe It’s Genetic – Why Are Economic Historians Such Boneheads?
A UC Davis Economics Professor, Gregory Clark, recently published a book that has created quite a sensation among the professoriate. Catchingly titled “A Farewell To Alms” it takes aim at the question of economic growth: What is the cause of…
Morgan Stanley: “Recession Coming”
Morgan Stanely economists are out today with a piece forecasting a recession: “Recession Coming”. It appears that the Wall Street economists are moving towards forecasting a recession (see, for example, Goldman’s recent forecast of a 40-45% probability of a recession). (Via MarketBeat)
End Of The Year Fun And Games – Tax Loss Selling and Window Dressing
Last Monday, on the first trading day of December, I put up a post on “Santa Claus Rallies”. Today, The Wall Street Journal has a story on the same thing on the front page of it’s Money & Investing section:…
UBS Pulls A Citigroup – Takes $10 Billion Subprime Writedown, Receives $11.5 Billion Investment
The big news this morning is an announcemement by UBS that they will take a $10 billion writedown on their US subprime exposure and also that the Singapore Investment Authority ($9.75 bil) and an unnamed Middle East investor ($1.75 bil) have made investments…
Recession = Smaller Boobs?
“… during the last month of the quarter, we did start to see the beginning of some softening in demand and the channel research that we did and the studies that we conducted say that some plastic surgeons were starting…