Sign inRecent Commentaries tagged (bonds)
Words from the (investment) wise for the week that was (March 8–14, 2010)
Shrugging off some lingering reminders of the credit crisis and recession, investors last week marked the one-year anniversary of the bear market low by pushing many benchmark equity indices to cycle highs. Wall Street scaled 17-month highs on the back of easing concerns of sovereign debt...
A Few Notes From the Fordham Conference
I will have a more comprehensive post tomorrow on my thoughts on bank regulation, but I will offer a few thoughts here. One thing I found interesting at the conference was what did not get much play in terms of what helped to create the crisis. It was fascinating that no one talked about why...
At the Fordham Conference: Creative Ideas for Limiting Bank Risk
Cornelius Hurley argues that banks are implicitly and explicitly subsidized, and that they need to return the subsidy. Dean Baker argues for a transfer tax, and weakening the political power of financial institutions. Really tangential to the point of the conference. I’m not sure it would help...
At the Fordham Conference: Where We Are and How We Got There
First panel deals with James Kwak: Funding costs were overly low at the major banks. Alleges too big to fail, but big banks were highly rated. My experience is that small banks equally good as large banks have much higher fundung costs. Richard Carnell: hits the nail on the head — Regulators...
The Rules, Part IV
Okay, here is tonight’s rule: Governments that scam the asset markets (and their citizens) take all manner of half measures to defend failed policies before undertaking structural reform. (This includes defending the currency, some asset sales, anything that avoids true shrinkage of the role of...
Chart Presentation: Out of the Blue
March 10 (Bloomberg) — The worst of Greece’s financial crisis is over and other European nations won’t follow in its path, said former European Commission President Romano Prodi. It often feels as if markets crises appear right out of the blue. Typically, however, a problem builds until it hits...
The Rules, Part III
Okay, here is tonight’s rule: The assumption of normality for asset price changes is wrong in virtually every financial market setting. The proper distributions are fatter tailed and more negatively skewed. Normality allows researchers to publish, regardless of the truth. Normality allows risk...
Chart Presentation: The 12 Month Lead
The question today is whether the long end of the Treasury market is actually leading the short end- and hence the Fed- by close to a year. Below we compare the U.S. 30-year T-Bond futures and 3-month eurodollar futures with the charts shifted or offset by one year. The argument is that the peak...
Chart Presentation: Visual Representation
We are going to concentrate on a couple of similarities to the post-1990 markets on the first two pages today. Below is a comparison between the U.S. 30-year T-Bond futures and the ratio between crude oil and natural gas futures from July of 1990 through December of 1991.One of our arguments in...
Prieur’s readings (March 10, 2010)
This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy. • Brian Sack (New York Fed - transcript of speech): Preparing for a smooth (eventual) exit, March 8, 2010. When the time comes to tighten monetary policy, the Federal Reserve...
Where is GM Right Now?
By: Mark MelnickGeneral Motors Bondholders: Americas Jagged Little PillWhen people think of bondholders in general, people think of big wealthy tycoons taking a hefty-sized safe bet versus huge corporations. This however is not the case of the approximately 100,000 "mom and pop" holders of...
The Rules, Part II
Before I start tonight, a reminder, those that want to follow me on Twitter can do so here. I will be sharing posts and ideas that I find insightful, that I might or might not share on the blog. I’m still working with it. Thanks to all of those that tweeted and retweeted, and those that are...
The Rules, Part I
Dear readers, I am now on Twitter — AlephBlog is my moniker if you want to follow me. I have been somewhat reluctant to do this, but tonight’s post stems from a file on nonlinear dynamics on my computer that I developed between 1999 and 2003 for the most part. Not so humbly, I called it “The...
Wealthtrack – Where is Bruce Berkowitz finding value now?
This week on Wealthtrack, Consuelo Mack, sits down with Bruce Berkowitz. He is Morningstar’s Domestic Equity Fund Manager of the Decade and portfolio manager of the five-star Fairholme Fund. Berkowitz explains how he has beaten the S&P by more than 200 percent over the past decade and where he...
Don Coxe webcast – updated (March, 5, 2010)
Don Coxe has updated his popular webcast on Friday, February 5 - good news for his followers. You can access the recording here or from the sidebar of the Investment Postcards site (the column on the right-hand side) by clicking on Don’s photograph. Please note that access to Don’s recording...
