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Economics:
There were lots of weak US economic numbers released today. Industrial production in April fell 0.7%, capacity utilization dropped to 79.7%, the Philly Fed index contracted again with another negative reading of 15.6, the New York Empire manufacturing index fell to negative 3 while the prices paid component posted a large increase to another record […]
Should North American investors be investing based on an economic environment that is recessionary or inflationary?
As mentioned previously, the US economy seems to be in a bull market as bad news (such as housing or employment stats) results in rising stock markets. If the market responds to bad news by pushing up the stock […]
Recession or high inflation?
A stagflation is a combination of a recession and an inflationary environment; the economy is contracting yet inflation is high. If the governments were doing their jobs properly this wouldn’t happen, but since they all want to get re-elected they tried to continuously pump up the economy so that it grows at […]
There’s lots of talk about what Helicopter Ben Bernanke and the FOMC will decide to do with short term interest rates next week. Apparently the market is no longer pricing in a 50 basis point cut in rates with some economists expecting only 25 or even no rate cuts. My feeling is that Helicopter Ben […]
Recap:
Wow, another big day in the market with the Dow up 228 and the TSX up 121. Citigroup posted another loss of $5 billion after writing down another $15 billion of assets. Oddly enough the markets were happy with the results, as they were neither as bad as the previous quarter $-10 billion, nor as […]
Recap:
The TSX was up 55 and the Dow Jones was down 23 after another big bank (Wachovia) reported a quarterly loss and cut its dividend. It’ll be interesting to see how many more write-offs are coming and how many banks report lower earnings or even losses. I expect there will be many more.
Economics:
Retail sales in […]
