First off, when I was making my mental list of things that could be done if the financial reform bill failed to pass, tripling the budget of the regulatory agencies was up there. They’ve been starved of adequate resources quite consciously post 1980, which leads to brain-drain and revolving doors.
Steve Waldman wrote up last Monday’s Treasury meeting in a must read post. I wish I had written it, it captures both the meeting and how Treasury looked to people on our side of the meeting.
When it comes to the new talking points on HAMP, Steve gets it written better than I did:
In my previous post on the U.S. financial sector, I expressed misgivings that it would be a good place to invest over the next decade or so, considering how big it has become. Some leveling off of growth, or reversion to the mean, could be in store.
A great deal has been written recently about the fact that the Fed's effort to provide for more liquidity in the financial system has really not produced much growth as bank's are holding the liquidity in excess reserves (click on chart to enlarge).
The importance of this has to do with the Quantity Theory of Money (QTM) which describes the interplay of nominal GDP, money supply and velocity. I wrote on this topic in early 2009 in a...
David Dayen at FireDogLake is doing a great job with a series Portrait of HAMP Failure (Four Parts so far, Part One, Two, Three, Four.)
The key is in the title of the first post: “It Makes Your Financial Situation Worse.” The power asymmetry between the banks and the borrowers is the most obvious problem. The borrowers should have disproportionately more power, as they are the ones who can walk or stop paying. The shame that comes from this...
[Think of this as a guest post by the Cynic in me. I’m not sure my Cynic is entirely right on either the facts or the economics, but he has a provocative point. And I apologize for the fact that he misuses the word “recession” to include the period since our inadequate recovery began.]
Americans got angry when the federal government tried to bail out banks by buying assets or taking capital positions. Whatever you may think of those bailout programs, they at least had the advantage that taxpayers were getting something in return for...
Jeremy Siegel noted in The Future for Investors (2005) that the S&P 500 Index started in 1957 without a single financial stock in it. By the nid-2000s, the financial sector had the biggest weighting of any sector.
Below is a chart of actual versus estimated year-over-year earnings growth in the second quarter of 2010. The estimates are from early July just before earnings season started. As shown, earnings for the entire S&P 500 grew just under 50% in Q2 versus Q2 2009. This is 15 percentage points higher than the estimate of 34% just before reports started getting released.
The Financial sector had the biggest growth at 119.2%, which was also the widest gap versus expectations. Analysts were looking for...
NEW YORK (Market Intellisearch) -- Shares of iShares Dow Jones US Financial Sector settled at $52.29 up $1.04(+2.03%) in today's trading session. On the volume front, trading was lighter than ...
Last month, China superseded the United States as the world's largest energy consumer and the nation's expected appetite for black gold is likely to provide positive price support to crude oil and ...
Ben Bernanke cannot influence the economy. We are no longer in the past where the Fed waves their magic wand, lowers rates and everything will be better. Mr. Bubble has rates already at zero ...
NEW YORK (Market Intellisearch) -- In today's trading session, the shares of iShares Dow Jones US Basic Materials crossed above the 50-day moving average indicating a likely bullish trend. Recent ...
NEW YORK (Market Intellisearch) -- Unusual volume of call contracts was traded today. There were 2,364 call contracts traded compared to the ten day average volume of 465 contracts. On the put ...
As emerging markets continue to grow and affluence rises, the developing world is likely to be the driving force behind growth in the global health care sector paving the path to opportunity in ...
The iShares Dow Jones US Medical Devices Index Fund ETF (IHI) is seeing unusually high volume in afternoon trading Wednesday, with over 445,000 shares traded versus three month average volume of ...
iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (ITB) [Chart - Analysis - News] established a new 52-week low yesterday at $10.73. Clearly investors are not enthusiastic about the firm's prospects. The ...
By Chip Brian iShares Dow Jones US Financial Sector Index Fund (NYSE:IYF) traded in a range yesterday that spanned from a low of $48.62 to a high of $49.28. Yesterday, the shares fell 1.47%, which ...
NEW YORK (Market Intellisearch) -- Shares of iShares Dow Jones US Basic Materials closed below the 50-day moving average of $58.25. Technical analysts and investors who study trading patterns will ...
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