To Make Money In This Bubble-and-Bust World, You MUST Be A Contrarian (NYSEARCA:TZA, NYSEARCA:FAS, NYSEARCA:FAZ, NYSEARCA:SKF, NYSEARCA:XLF Martin D. Weiss: I rarely recommend that you wade through a wordy speech by an economic theorist delivered to an audience of stuffy bankers. But last week’s address by PIMCO Vice President El-Erian to the St. And to save you the trouble of deciphering the economics code words, I dedicate most of this issue to the key points he makes — the same basic points that our colleague Mike Larson has been making for months. First and foremost, four of the world’s largest central banks have gone absolutely berserk, running the money printing presses like never before in history: The Bank of Japan (BOJ) had already been printing money like crazy ever since their bubble economy burst in the early 1990s. So when the debt crisis struck in 2008, the size of their balance sheet assets, which measure the cumulative total of a central bank’s money printing operations, was already the biggest in the world: About 20% of their economy. Meanwhile … At the U.S. But Fed Chairman Bernanke changed all that. J.P.
Carl Richards On The Psychology Of Buying High And Selling Low It’s easy to sit around and lecture people to cut back on spending, pay off debt, and get control of their finances. That’s what so many financial advisers and writers do — yet they never stop to ask themselves why so few of their readers actually follow through. So today, I want to introduce you to Carl Richards, one of my favorite financial advisers on the planet. You might be familiar with his sketches, which have been seen on the New York Times. He understands that math is only a small part of personal finance — and that psychology is hugely important. The startling and surprising numbers of how you can actually get equal or higher returns — with lower riskThe classic mistake investors make after a market has changed directionsThe psychology of automatic rebalancing I asked him to write up a detailed account on the psychology of investing. Carl, take it away. Successful investing is hard. Buying High and Selling Low In January we poured $44.5 billion into stock mutual funds.
Will Proposed Financial Regulatory Overhaul Actually Reform Wall This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. JUAN GONZALEZ: With the main healthcare reform bill signed into law, Democrats say congressional efforts to reform Wall Street and the nation’s financial regulatory system will soon top the Obama administration’s agenda. On Wednesday, the President held a strategy meeting at the White House with Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd and House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank. SEN. I think the American people expect us to address the largest and most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression, caused by a collapse in our financial system either because regulators didn’t do their job or there were no cops on the beat at all, and certainly in unregulated activities that contributed to this mess. JUAN GONZALEZ: Meanwhile, Congressman Barney Frank said the issue of financial regulatory reform will be Congress’s number-one concern after a two-week Easter break. ROBERT JOHNSON: Yes. [break]
Where Blankfein came from In this book excerpt from MONEY AND POWER: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World, author William D. Cohan examines Lloyd Blankfein's up-from-nothing story, and finds out why Hank Paulson would've rather had no one else as Goldman Sachs's CEO. By William D. Cohan, contributor Lloyd Blankfein Lloyd Blankfein's path tothe pinnacle of finance nearly rivals for degree of difficulty that of his legendary predecessor Sidney Weinberg, who was one of eleven children of a Brooklyn bootlegger and started working at Goldman Sachs as a gofer shining spittoons, in 1907, a few years removed from elementary school. The family lived in the Linden Houses, a complex of nineteen buildings completed in 1957 that contained 1,590 apartments and was— at the time— a predominantly white, Jewish, public housing project. Richard Kalb, who grew up with Blankfein and has remained friendly with him, said his father worked at the post office, too. Blankfein was young and knew it. At that time, J.
FINALLY, SOME EXCELLENT INVESTMENT ADVICE: Don't Play The Losers' Game If you're an individual with some money to invest, the first thing you need to know if you want to invest intelligently is that you shouldn't play the Losers' Game. What's the Losers' Game? The game that 99.9% of the people who talk about investing appear to be playing: Namely, following global economics and markets and investment advice and trying to make smart decisions along the way. If you play that investment game, you're almost certain to lose. And the sooner you understand that, the sooner you'll be on your way to investing intelligently. In other words, if you want to invest intelligently, the first thing you should do is ignore 99.9% of what you hear in the financial media. Why? Because, if your goal is to invest intelligently, what you hear in the financial media is mostly distracting noise that will trick you into making expensive mistakes. That doesn't mean that the people in and on the financial media are stupid--they aren't. Specifically, you should ignore: Got that? That's it.
New Collaborative Google Docs Unveiled - Bits Blog Google Google is continuing its assault on Microsoft’s dominance of the multibillion dollar market for productivity software. On Monday, Google is unveiling new versions of Google Docs, which includes document, spreadsheet and presentation editors, all on the Web, offered free to consumers or for an annual price of $50 per user for businesses. Google first released these productivity apps in 2006 and then, as now, the focus was squarely on real-time collaboration. In the new document editing apps, up to 50 people can work on the same document at the same time, literally conducting letter-by-letter tug-of-wars over individual words. Since the new versions don’t have all the features of the originals, like auto-translation, Google will offer them as a preview option for a few months, while keeping the old versions. Microsoft’s Office 2010, coming this spring, will have its own collaboration and cloud features, of course, so this will continue to be an uphill battle for Google.
JPMorgan Gets Best Bond Rates as Dimon Extends Maturity: Corporate Finance JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), deemed by derivatives traders to be the most creditworthy of the six biggest U.S. banks, locked in the lowest interest rate its industry has seen since 2005 on 30-year debt. The biggest U.S. bank by assets sold $1.25 billion of 5.4 percent debentures yesterday to yield 250 basis points, or 2.5 percentage points, more than similar-maturity Treasuries, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the only other U.S. JPMorgan is pushing out the maturities of its debt as yields on investment-grade corporate bonds due in 15 years or more approach the lowest on record while the Federal Reserve holds down interest rates to stimulate the economy. “JPMorgan is one of the few in the market now that can issue these bonds, and a big reason is investors think they’re one of the best banks out there,” Rob Crimmins, a New York- based money manager at RS Investment Management Co., which oversees $30 billion. Lowest Coupon Average Maturity ‘Good Value’
Federal Reserve Economic Data - FRED - St. Louis Fed Skip to main content Economic Research Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis My Account Register Sign in Download, graph, and track 385,000 US and international time series from 80 sources. Browse data by Tag, Category, Release, Source, Release Calendar or Get Help FRED News “Do I look OK?” “Beyond the Numbers” Conference Seeks Proposals FRED Blog Energy demand and supply Research News Weekend Gas Prices Build your own U.S. data map. Geographical Economic Data | St. CPI +1.1 % Chg. from Yr. Real GDP 0.5 % Chg. from Preceding Period on 2016:Q1 IP +0.7 % Chg. on 2016-04 10-Yr. US/Euro FX Rate 1.1294 U.S. $ to 1 Euro on 2016-05-13 Civ. Payroll Employment +160 Chg., Thous. of Persons on 2016-04 Initial Jobless Claims, 4-Week Moving Average 275750 on 2016-05-14 Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items 3 days ago Index 1982-1984=100 BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Option-Adjusted Spread© 9 hours ago Percent Civilian Unemployment Rate May 6 Real Gross Domestic Product Apr 28 Billions of Dollars
The MF Global Investigation Has Boiled Down To Just One Question Reuters is reporting that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has been investigating MF Global following the bankruptcy and the customer funds shortfall, actually knows where the MF Global money went. CFTC Commissioner Jill Sommers, who has been in charge of the MF Global inquiry, said that they now have a record of all transactions that were made in MF Global's last days—the only question that remains to be answered is if those transfers were legal or not. The question of legality is a contentious issue that has already been brought up before, as people explore the possible chance that there may be regulatory loopholes which allowed MF Global to do what it did (rehypothecation, anyone?). And just yesterday, when CME Group CEO Terrence Duffy said he was informed Corzine knew about a transfer of $175 million of customer funds in MF Global's last days, DealBook pointed out that the transfer may have been legal.
The Daily Capitalist Euro and stocks fall as sovereign debt meltdown closer to realisation « ArabianMoney Posted on 15 December 2011 with 1 comment from readers The euro dipped below $1.30 yesterday but still has a long way to fall to its launch exchange rate of 85 cents to the dollar. But it could get there an awful lot faster than most analysts think possible. Welcome to the eurozone sovereign debt meltdown scenario which has been discussed so much over the past two years that anybody could be forgiven for believing this is some kind of hysterical fantasy rather than a fast approaching reality. Logic of events As ArabianMoney has pointed out before those in denial are like the US stock market investors who failed to price-in the First World War until two months before it happened. The failure of European Union leaders last week to agree on anything approaching a credible solution to the immediate problem of the loss of confidence in the banking system and the single currency means that there is nothing to prevent the worst happening and so it will happen. Run on the banks
Robert Reich The 'Squidding' of Goldman Sachs - NewsTrust.net Taibbi writes: "In all seriousness, I commend these protesters and hope no harm came of those arrests. Goldman continues to be a natural and appropriate target of protester anger and if OWS actions continue to mock the bank and make sport of them, it might help the public learn more about how these state-dependent banks operate and why they need to be reined in, if not broken up altogether." By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone 13 December 11 almost shed tears of pride this morning when I read this hilarious passage in the Daily News: Earlier Monday, about 300 protesters in squid costumes surged outside the offices of Goldman Sachs investment bank shouting, "We fry calamari!" I wish someone had called me - I would have loved to have attended this "Let's Go Squidding" expedition. In all seriousness, I commend these protesters and hope no harm came of those arrests. A perfect if small case in point, courtesy of Zero Hedge. Sure enough, European bank stocks are down 3.84% today alone...
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