September 21st, 2010 by Belisarius
They admitted only that the pace of recovery has slowed in recent months and introduced a hint of additional measures. Like I expected only the weakening economic activity is not fully addressed. Unexpectedly a fear of deflation and a will to fight it is introduced into statement (in two instances), in my view completely off the mark. The main […]
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September 3rd, 2010 by Belisarius
Equities Economic data released in recent month or so is on a absolute and relative basis weak. The difference from July is that the consensus has moved downwards, so the markets focuses on comparing actual data with consensus and disregarding absolute levels. But we are here to earn some money, not waste our time on […]
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August 13th, 2010 by Belisarius
To continue with fun things this morning… Paul Krugman’s New York Times op-ed column: Paralysis at the Fed. Ten years ago, one of America’s leading economists delivered a stinging critique of the Bank of Japan, Japan’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve, titled “Japanese Monetary Policy: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?” With only a few changes in […]
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August 9th, 2010 by Belisarius
We have a slow day today with no economic data in the U.S. Europe is trading on average up 1.5%, U.S. futures are up 0.3%, so it looks U.S. markets are not going to follow European lead. Sell side macro economists are following Goldman’s (brilliant) Jan Hatzius lead and reducing GDP growth both for second half of 2010 and […]
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August 2nd, 2010 by Belisarius
Equities Economic data released in recent month or so is dominated by bellow consensus readings and on absolute level pointing to only marginal and slowing growth. Consumer demand proxies point to deceasing level of consumer demand. Unemployment is high and it is not falling. The government stimulus is wearing off. But the market is rising despite all of that […]
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July 3rd, 2010 by Belisarius
Almost unchanged from June. Equities Only extremely favorable economic data could change the negative trend established. This is highly unlikely. So I would say we will soon see S&P 500 at 875. On a macro level, the stimulus is wearing off, politicians and central bankers are not ready to continue with loose fiscal an monetary policies, just the opposite, austerity is the game. […]
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June 9th, 2010 by Belisarius
Little late…but better late then never… Equities Only extremely favorable economic data could change the negative trend established. This is highly unlikely. So I would say we will soon see S&P 500 at 900. On a macro level, the stimulus is wearing off, politicians and central bankers are not ready to continue with loose fiscal an monetary policies, just the opposite, austerity is […]
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May 5th, 2010 by Belisarius
Equities With my 1,200 S&P 500 target reached I’ve moved to a kind of a ambiguous stance to the markets. Now I believe the equity markets are bound for a 10%+ down move at least. My mid-term view remains unchanged – this is just a bear market rally; U.S. and E.U. economies will experience same […]
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April 1st, 2010 by Belisarius
Equities Although I’m convinced that the economy is not pulling a V-shaped almost everywhere except in China and in their commodity based economy satellites I believe that in the short term the equity gains will continue. I have a 1200 S&P 500 target. I have only a small exposure to the markets (via a June […]
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March 26th, 2010 by Belisarius
All the fuss yesterday was because of this: When these tools are used to drain reserves from the banking system, they do so by replacing bank reserves with other liabilities; the asset side and the overall size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet remain unchanged. If necessary, as a means of applying monetary restraint, the […]
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February 24th, 2010 by Belisarius
The important part: The FOMC continues to anticipate that economic conditions–including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations–are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. Full version.
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February 19th, 2010 by Belisarius
I was on the road yesterday, so the usual service suffered… The most important piece of news yesterday was FED’s decision to increase the discount rate by 0.25%, to 0.75%. The measure has a marginal real impact on the banking sector, but it could have large psychological impact. The political and media orchestrated “recovery” pressures […]
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February 10th, 2010 by Belisarius
Marvin King: It was at this press conference one year ago that I explained the asset purchase programme to you. That was at a time of sharply falling output and collapsing confidence. Since then, the position has improved considerably. Output has stabilised and confidence has recovered. The additional money created by the asset programme will […]
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February 1st, 2010 by Belisarius
Equities We have seen a meaningful correction in equities in recent couple of weeks, we have a market that fails to react to presumably good news, we have low levels of cash in equity mutual funds and still high number of bulls; high beta stocks suffered massively; For me this is a setup for reversal, […]
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January 26th, 2010 by Belisarius
I’m puzzled by the market action in recent days. It fells that something is wrong, but I major move down doesn’t seem probable. The news and blogosphere are full of stories on Mr. Bernanke and AIG/Goldman Sachs/Societe Generale unwinding. Both are neither interesting neither useful in investing. Who cares what happened more than year ago, […]
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