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Today marks three important events: The Red Cross was founded Charles Lindberg landed The Spirit of Saint Louis in Paris My wife has her birthday! John Hussman sees the negative market action in recent weeks as well nigh inevitable. Last night he wrote: The Market Climate is characterized by unfavorable valuations, unfavorable market action,...
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In Search of the Perfect Creole Gumbo Jim Hamilton looks at Joseph Kennedy’s claim that speculators are the cause of high oil prices. meanwhile Venezuela under Chavez puts in place price controls to keep food prices down. Result? Food shortages. Who could have predicted that? The belief that price controls (whether floors or caps)...
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According to Caterpillar the US and Global economy will not go into recession. Should we consider their opinion important?
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We have two bits of commentary from Kyle Bass today. First he gave his usual straight forward views to CNBC this morning. Second his latest letter. Unfortunately I cannot find a version of the letter that can be printed or downloaded, so you will need to read it online. From the Interview “If you get...
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Long time readers know that I believe the National Association of Realtors reporting and analysis of the housing market is a joke, or it would be if the impact on the lives of those who listened to them were not so tragic. Turns out that their sales data was extremely inflated. Ya Think?
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Leading overall growth of U.S. exports, Louisiana's year-to-date 2011 worldwide merchandise exports increased by 45% in value over the same period in 2010, according to a report issued today by the World Trade Center of New Orleans. Through the third quarter, Louisiana exports totaled $39.8 billion, compared to $27.4 billion the previous year.
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Even if Germany and France get everybody to agree to what they want, the Euro will still fail eventually.
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Markit Economics has some great charts showing the global nature of the recent slowdown as measured by PMI surveys. First up, Europe: More charts at the full post Download article as PDF
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Today’s economic statistical releases are limited to retail sales numbers for the past week. Redbook and ICSC Goldman both show a lull in retail sales.
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Factory orders fell in October and the non-manufacturing ISM shows some slowing in the service sector.
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Today, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate declined significantly to 8.6% — the lowest level in 32 months. For some perspective on the current state of the labor market, today’s chart illustrates the unemployment rate since 1948. As today’s chart illustrates, the unemployment rate has been generally trending lower. However, the pace...
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Legendary value investor Seth Klarman sat down with Charlie Rose have a marvelous interview discussing Klarman’s involvement with Facing History, his cult investment classic, “Margin of Safety” and his approach to investing. Buying the book is prohibitively expensive ($1200.00 on Amazon) but you can e-mail me and I will gladly send you a pdf...
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Fundamentally currency unions without fiscal union are flawed. Shoehorning the northern and southern countries of Europe into one (with our without fiscal union) made no sense at all (The Economist) The economies of southern and northern Europe make strange bedfellows SINCE bond investors began to discriminate between the euro-zone economies, pushing yields on Spanish,...
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HT: James Dailey Thanks for visiting Risk and Return. Please feel free to contact us with any questions and/or comments. Please note our disclaimer. Download article as PDF
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Germany is roundly seen as the obstacle to saving the Euro by refusing to allow massive bond purchases and refusing to consider Eurobonds. The real obstacles however are poor options, not Germany.
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Not much blogging this weekend I am afraid as I will be celebrating with the Tigers moving to 11-0 for the year! Download article as PDF
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When the year started I suggested to a number of people with a willingness to step outside of the box that a local, young, unproven investment manager was worth considering. Not merely because he was talented or that the funds strategy was fundamentally sound, but because he had a particularly attractive opportunity set in...
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Today we look at a decline in jobless claims, an increase in housing starts, improving consumer comfort and E-Commerce with only the Philly Fed disappointing.
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From Naufall Sanaullah of Shadow Capitalism we get a nice overview of the world economy and markets. Open publication - Free publishing - More asia Download article as PDF
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There are no good options for Europe. Today John Hussman and I look at what is at stake and how it is likely to play out. The point is that there are no "good" options from Germany's point of view. However, a tanking economy may be a small price to pay compared to endless...
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