by John E. Silvia, Chief Economist, Wells Fargo Securities If you keep getting the wrong answer, then maybe you are asking the wrong question. For several years now, policymakers have been pursuing expansionary policy with the goal of significantly lower unemployment. Yet the wrong answer keeps popping up – high, persistent unemployment about eight percent. […]
The securitization markets for consumer and business asset-backed securities (ABS) and commercial mortgage -backed securities (CMBS), which supply a substantial share of credit to consumers and small businesses, came to a near-complete halt in the fall of 2008, as investors responded to a drastic decline in funding liquidity by curtailing their participation in these markets. […]
by Peter A. Gold Philadelphia Business Journal July 6, 2012 I’m not an economist but I serve on two boards of directors with representatives of leading international financial Institutions, central banks and even a Nobel Prize winning economist. I am continually humbled by their profound knowledge in their respective fields. I surmise that they would […]
By Timothy Weckesser, Ph.D. & Yang Lin, Sino-Consulting We recently completed a comprehensive study of China’s electric vehicle industry which, we believe, presents a vivid example of what “industrial planning” means in that country. China’s economy is often a hard-to-define mixture of pure private enterprise and comprehensive central planning, as evidenced by the well-known Five-Year […]
The below editorial was published in the June 11, 2012 edition of the USA TODAY. The electronic version can be found here. by David Kotok Many analysts argue that the eurozone crisis will put the U.S. economy into a recession. They are wrong. Most fail to acknowledge the lessons learned by Americans during the last […]
by J. Paul Horne, Independent Market Economist* Europe must be grateful to Greece for dramatizing: how the Euro is fundamentally flawed; how the Euro’s failure could cause a financial-economic disaster; and how European Union (EU) leaders must, despite all their differences and electoral setbacks cooperate to avoid a Greek tragedy. This week will be crucial […]
By J. Paul Horne, Independent International Market Economist* Well, he’s in with nearly 52% of the popular vote as Sarkozy was rebuffed with barely 48%, only the second President of the Fifth Republic to be voted out after only one term, a major political reversal for the right. Sarko paid the price of the financial […]
The old adage “Sell in May and go away” was good guidance for stock markets last year. The market peaked on April 29 and bottomed on October 3. For a detailed discussion of this period and the subsequent bull-market recovery, see our new book From Bear to Bull with ETFs. The eBook (ten bucks) is now available on Amazon.com. Paperbacks by month end and other channels of distribution like iBook and Nook are coming. Please note that profits from this book will be donated to the Global Interdependence Center.
History shows that ‘Sell in May and go away’ has applied when the Federal Reserve was in a tightened mode during the six-month span from May to November. If the Fed was actively raising interest rates, withdrawing or constricting credit, imposing additional reserve requirements, or taking an action that was of a tightening mode, stock markets were usually punished in that six-month period.
By Bill Witherell, Cumberland Advisors Chief Global Economist The title of this commentary may come as a surprise. Over the past year and a half, the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone has dominated European issues in the financial press. There has been little mention of the Central and Eastern Europe members of the […]
