The holiday-shortened week witnessed relatively few news and economic reports, but the major US stock indices nevertheless scored their first five-week stretch of gains since October 2007.
A mixed bag of video clips was produced. First up is Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian, saying, “Fundamentally we are in a volatile journey to what we call the new normal, the new destination. The world is changing.” Also featuring prominently are a series of must-see interviews by Aaron Task (Yahoo Finance, Tech Ticker) with George Soros about a wide-ranging number of issues.
Spicing up the week’s video footage was a fairly lively debate between UBS’s George Magnus and the G7’s Len Komileva, with another interesting discussion coming from Nouriel Roubini and Goldman’s Jim O’Neill.
Also make sure to watch Argentinean economist Adrian Salbuchi’s video clips, putting the financial collapse in context by referring to historical examples from Argentina.
CNBC: Pimco’s power player
“The markets are on a volatile journey to a ‘new normal’, says Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco CEO.”
Source: CNBC, April 7, 2009.
Financial Times: Roundtable – the road to recovery
“Nouriel Roubini of New York University and Jim O’Neill, chief investment economist at Goldman Sachs, talk to John Thornhill about the G20 summit, and the road to economic recovery.”
Source: Financial Times, April 6, 2009.
Face the Nation: Geithner talks recovery
“Bob Schieffer spoke with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about economic recovery and a possible auto industry bailout.”
Source: Face the Nation, April 5, 2009.
Financial Times: A heated debate on G20 and fiscal stimulus
“In a special View from the Markets, Gillian Tett, capital markets editor, chairs a debate on what the G20 did and didn’t achieve. In the hot seats were George Magnus, chief economist adviser, UBS and Lena Komileva, head of G7 market economics.”
Click here or on the image below for Part 1 of the interview.
Part 2: They agree the G20 didn’t go far enough in finding measures to fix the banks and end the financial crisis.
Click here for Part 2 of the interview.
Part 3: They discuss whether credit markets will follow glimmers of hope in the equity markets and if securitization has any future after the crisis.
Click here for Part 3 of the interview.
Source: Gillian Tett, Financial Times, April 6, 2009.
Yahoo Finance, Tech Ticker: Soros says Fed in a bind – beware stagflation, bursting of bond bubble
“After the financial market collapsed last fall, the Fed responded with a massive injection of liquidity and expansion of the monetary base. Eventually, Ben Bernanke & Co. will face the challenge of having to remove that liquidity from the system. ‘That’s a big and difficult task and probably the authorities will not be able to do it well,’ says legendary financier George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management. ‘That’s the fear that drives people into gold.’
“Soros wouldn’t say whether he’s actively trading gold but certainly implied it’s a good bet; more explicitly, he agreed with the view there’s a ‘bubble’ in Treasuries that’s likely to burst sooner rather than later.
“‘The moment this fear of deflation turns into a fear of inflation, you’ll find interest rates rise in the long end which is going to choke off the recovery,’ he says. ‘If we are successful [in reviving the economy] we are heading from the prospect of deflation to stagflation.’”
Source: Yahoo Finance, Tech Ticker, April 7, 2009.
