At a bond conference in Paris yesterday, the two premier bond rating agencies warned the U.K., Germany, and France that their AAA credit ratings was in danger. They also clearly warned that U.S. bonds faced the same danger. Why was it big news in Europe but not in the U.S.? As the world’s only reserve currency, that is a huge deal! One analyst from S&P…
Whenever the deadline for my quarterly column in “Inside Business” comes up, my blog tends to get ignored. Yesterday, I turned in the newest column, which will appear in this weekend’s edition. Thus, it is time to catch with a number of thoughts for the blog. First, while this column is about economics and investing, sometimes political issues cannot be ignored, and the tragedy in…
Easily, one of the most iconoclastic thinkers today is Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who burst onto the intellectual scene with his 2007 blockbuster “The Black Swan.” In that book, he describes the three characteristics of highly improbable events, i.e., the event has a massive effect, that it is unpredictable, and that it appears obvious after the fact. Published just prior to the Global Financial Crisis of…
I have been following the crisis in municipal bonds, primarily at the state level, for several months and have found it helpful to compare it with the crisis of 1841. Eight states plus the territory of Florida actually defaulted on their debts. As expected, the interest rates they had to pay soared, up to 30% at one time. We can expect the same to happen…
Will the stock market be up or down this year? There are several versions of the “January Effect”. Here is the simplest one. Since the S&P was up 1.1% the first week of January, there is an 87% probability it will be even higher at year-end. Any questions? In additon, the third year of the presidency, Republican or Democratic, has historically been the best year…
Yesterday, the Street was expecting that 175 thousand new jobs were created in December. Overnight, the estimate drifted down to 150 thousand, which is a little suspicious. This morning, it was announced that 103 thousand jobs were created. That is a lot less than either 150 or 175 thousand, and the market could be expected to drop at the open. However, it also announced that…
Yesterday, the ADP survey indicated that private payrolls increased far more than expected in December. Today’s weekly report on initial unemployment claims slightly missed expectations, coming in at 418 thousand people. The number of people receiving regular state unemployment fell slightly to 4.1 million, which is good but not very good. Today’s report is the first of a week or so that has been disappointing.…
Payroll processing giant, ADP releases their monthly jobs report on Wednesday, before the all-important job reports issued by the Department of Labor on first Friday of each month. Expectations for this Friday’s report were about 140,000. This morning, ADP estimated 297,000 jobs were created in December. Expectations for Friday’s report are now rising rapidly. In fairness, ADP has made some wildly wrong estimates in the…
Yesterday, the ISM Index (Institute for Supply Management) came in stronger than expected. In other words, manufacturing is continuing to improve, four months in a row. In addition, orders are growing faster than inventories, suggesting even more future growth in manufacturing. Also, it was announced that occupied office space increased for the first time in three years, signaling better health in commercial real estate than…
2010 was kind to investors. The Dow was up 11%, while China was down 16%. Commodities like gold, cotton, and copper did great, driven partly by the weakening dollar and partly from the incipient inflation. (The stocks of smaller companies did the best, up 26% . . . so much for that reverential regard of “Blue Chips” . . .) Of course, it is fair…
Today’s auction of $29 billion in 7-year Treasuries was average, with a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.88, almost exactly the rolling ten average of 2.86. Of the three auctions this week, there was lots of demand for the 2-year issue, less demand than usual for the 10-year issue, and average demand for the 7-year issue. Investors don’t want to hold longer term debt. Some analysts think…
Yesterday, there was a very successful auction of 2-year Treasuries. Today, there was a barely successful auction of 10-year Treasuries. The bid-to-cover ratio dropped from 3.71 to 2.61. In addition, foreign interest dropped significantly. The market is saying they don’t want to hold any bonds longer than 2-years because longer-term bonds will lose value due to inflation sometime after 2-years but within 10-years. Forewarned is…
The market can be much more volatile when few people are trading. That’s because one big trade can really push the market one way or the other. The period between Christmas and New Year’s Day is always a slow trading time. When I realized the U.S. was planning to sell $35 billion in 2-year Treasury bonds today, I was a little worried and wondered why…
I spent Christmas reading John Quiggin’s new book titled “Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us.” It began with Keynes’ great belief that “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” I believe that statement is true. Since Quiggin is a Keynesian economist, I expected he would lambast the Austrian…
Surviving veterans of the European front in World War II show pride in toppling Hitler. Few take any credit for establishing the dollar as the world’s “reserve currency,” but it was terribly important. Immediately after the war, the victorious Allies met in Geneva to begin mapping the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe. One of the many things they did was to require international…
Today, the Commerce Department announced that growth in the third quarter was slightly better than previously released, i.e., 2.6% versus 2.5%. It continues the stream of good economic news. Growth in the first quarter was a whopping 3.7%, while the stock market was very bullish. Growth in the second quarter was a relatively sluggish (but still positive) 1.7%, and we saw a bear market. With…
The S&P is now at the highest level since September of 2008. The Dow has been up ten out of the last eleven days. The Bull is back?? Of course, the volume of trading has been very low, making the recent good performance of the market less reliable. Obviously, traders and investors are taking the rest of the year off and good for them! The…
An investor takes a longer term view. He looks at those sectors and nations where growth looks most promising and then positions his portfolio to benefit from that growth. A trader takes a short term view, sometimes in minutes. If war breaks out between the two Koreas, you can expect both the U.S. dollar and gold to rise together, which happens very seldom. You will…
I was only thirteen years old in 1960, when establishment Republican Henry Cabot Lodge was the running mate of Richard Nixon in the presidential campaign, that they lost to John Kennedy. I recall Lodge being criticised by the John Birch Society and some religious groups as being supportive of a one-world government, which they believed was described in the Bible as the last step before…
I’ve been predicting a slow but steady recovery for the economy. Of course, the stock market is only loosely related to the economy. The market has improved this year more than the economy has. But, expectations for the stock market next year are awfully high. The S&P closed yesterday at 1244. Goldman Sachs predicts it will close at 1450 at the end of next year.…
Last night, I watched The History Channel. (Yes, economists do watch The History Channel but only because there is no Economics Channel.) The show was about the Third Reich and showed the suffering of ordinary people. Not to be disrespectful, but it also showed their inconvenience. They had shortages of consumer goods and electricity. They even had tax increases. It reminded me of an evening…
Yesterday, the stock market reached the highest point in over two years. Does that mean the party is over? No, of course not! Does that mean we will get back to our 2007 market high? Yes, but not in 2011. Does that mean we face smooth sailing? Absolutely not! December and January are usually the two best months of the year for the market. We’ve…
I love that expression . . . manana economics. It covers those areas of economics that can be dealt with tomorrow, i.e., where kicking the can down the road is a good idea. Fareed Zakaria is a native of India with a Ph.D. from Harvard and writes a column for Newsweek, as well as being a CNN contributor. He coined the term referring to the…
The Wall Street Journal just released their latest survey of economists. Generally, they are more optimistic! The economy grew at 2.5% in the third quarter. Estimates for the fourth quarter were raised from 2.4% to 2.6% and 3.0% for the first half of 2011. Also, they reduced the odds of a double-dip recession from 22% to only 15%, another good sign. This survey was conducted…
Yesterday, the Senate took the first step in creating certainty about our tax burden next year. A believer in Supply-Side economics will be delighted because there are tax cuts. A believer in Keynesian economics will be relieved we didn’t increase taxes during a recession. A believer in Austrian economics will be horrified that we made the deficit crisis worse. I don’t recall who said this…
When the Fed announced QE2, they expected interest rates would fall. At first, everything went as expected. Now, those rates have started to rise. Ten-year Treasury bonds now pay 3.36%, which is a six-month high. One reason for interest rates to rise is that the Fed is causing it intentionally, which is not the case. Another reason is that the economy is improving, which makes…
We’ve often mentioned the bond vigilantes who could cause unimaginable trouble for the U.S. and greatly increase the burden of paying interest on our huge national debt. Today, our Treasury Department auctioned off $21 billion in 10-year bonds. Fewer bidders wanted the bonds. The bid-to-cover ratio was 2.92 compared to a recent average of 3.12. And, those bidders are demanding we pay a higher rate…
Last night, the President announced a bi-partisan deal to extend the tax cuts for another two years, which reduced uncertainty. This morning, the Dow futures are up 81 points at this hour. You’ll recall the inverse relationship between uncertainty and the markets. It should be a good day for the markets! It is probably not significant enough to say it should be a good week,…
Normally, I am careful to avoid any discussion of politics, finding it seldom helpful. Both parties spin shamelessly. So, it may have been surprising to see me quoted twice in The Virginian-Pilot last Friday, referring to comments I made to a Senate hearing on redistricting. Redistricting is as exciting as watching paint dry but terribly important. Because the borders of voting districts had been gerry-mandered…
It has been fascinating, if saddening, to observe the political spinning around expiration of the Bush and Obama tax cuts this month. (Don’t forget a third of Obama’s $787 billion Stimulus bill was also a tax cut.) My inner-Keynesian economist is afraid consumer demand will decrease if they are paying more in taxes, so the tax cut should be extended. My inner-Austrian economist is afraid…
When was the last time you heard the word “deficit” used so often? I’ll bet I heard it or read it more often last week than the last two years combined. That’s a good thing! When President Obama first appointed the Deficit Commission, I was disappointed the Republican Party did not support that effort and felt it would therefore just be another waste of time,…
Recently, I blogged that market reflects tidal changes in certainty and uncertainty. The market goes down when uncertainty goes up and vice versa. Increasing certainty is good for the market. An old and dear friend sent me a Shakespearean quote from his play Julius Caesar saying There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; The…
Today’s Jobs Report was awful! Economists were expecting 144 thousand jobs were created and were stunned when they learned only 39 thousand were created. Given the steady flow of relatively good economic data over the past few months, this is a surprise . . . a fishy surprise. Data for last month’s Jobs Report was increased from 151 thousand to 172 thousand. So, we created…