Some amusing headlines appearing elsewhere today, proclaiming the Greek crisis is over. Hardly: Uri Dadush of the Carnegie Endowment, and formerly of the World Bank, says that "it is virtually inevitable that Greece will either default or need a bailout of some sort." Dadush, who a week ago wrote a provocative op-ed in the FT titled " End this inflation fundamentalism ", in which he noted that "what happens in Greece will not stay in Greece" also says that "over and beyond the Greek bailout we have to do some thinking about our approach to overall fiscal and monetary approach in Europe." What? Visiting Ben Bernanke every 6 months is no longer sufficient
Submitted by the man himself in all its epilepsy-inducing grammatic glory.
It's Friday after the close - time for the government to sneak one past traders, who are already on their fifth moqito.
According to the CFTC's Commitment of Traders report, non-commercial speculative shorts in the Euro declined for the week ended March 2, and for the first time in over two months, tracking the move of the EUR higher over the past week. Total net positions declined from -71,623
Don't say the SEC doesn't work hard for its billion dollar budget. The syndicate endorsing corruption (and not even worthy of capitalization), has released a statement indicating it is now pursuing enforcement action against a "known" psychic "who fraudulently raised $6 million after telling investors he could predict stock market highs and lows." Uhm, so does that mean that the SEC is now after every single pundit on CNBC as well
Chris Wood, who publishes the famous Fear and Greed newsletter, which Zero Hedge has republished on many occasions in the past (and whose latest edition can be found here), has some very scary things to say about the dollar in his interview by the CNBC lunch brigade. While Wood is still optimistic on Asia, and specifically China, due to lack of deflation in the region (for now), and expects an appreciation of the yuan soon, he is about as pessimistic on the dollar and "developed" economies as they come.
The US Treasury has issued its annual preliminary US Holdings report for June 2009. While the data for the June 30th period is obviously stale , what is notable is that the UST's estimates through December 2009 , based on survey data, put China higher by about $140 billion compared to the previously disclosed number of $755 billion, at $894.9 billion. Alternatively, Japan which was consider the top holder of US Treasuries with $769 billion, saw its estimated holdings decline to $765.7 billion.
Paul Mylchreest submits the following exhaustive Thunder Road report (from October 15, 2009), which is a follow-up to the previously posted Redburn Partners report . A detailed analysis on some of the less discussed aspects of the gold market, this is another must read for all who have even an incipient interest in the gold market.
Key highlight: With regard to risk factors for economic activity, members concurred that, while there were some upside risks such as faster growth in emerging and commodity-exporting economies, there remained downside risks such as the possible consequences of balance-sheet adjustments in the United States and Europe as well as potential changes in firms' medium- to long-term growth expectations. They also agreed that attention should be paid to the effects of various recent international financial developments on Japan's economy, such as increased concerns about sovereign risk and developments in financial regulation and supervision around the globe. Many members were of the view that, compared with the risk assessment presented in the October 2009 Outlook Report, upside and downside risks had started to become more balanced due to faster growth in emerging economies.
Don't look for anything new here: lots of optimism, lots of Okun's law references, and a whole lot of dovishness and "this time we know what we are doing." Some excerpts: On unsustainable budgets I’m no fan of persistently large budget deficits. I’ve warned against them throughout my career. But the real danger I see from them is not inflation
Monday, March 8, 2010
0 Comments