Research:
Crisis Forecasting: Currency Overvaluation; Capital Mobility; Currency Appreciation; Credit ~ historysquard
Marginal Cost of Production for Oil ~ historysquared
Chinese Skyscraper an ominous sign ~ arizonomics - for a couple empirical studies on skyscrapers and asset performance: historysquared
Sovereign Default and Recovery Rates, 1983-2010 ~ Moody’s
Bubble hunting: Investment (% of GDP) Data for All Countries as an indicator of overbuilding ~ IMF
US interest rates – 6 month rate of change since 1968 ~ historysquared
UK Interest Rates chart puts "spikes" in perspective. ~ Stephen Johnson
US:
Oregon State Professor fired after expressing climate change skepticism ~ Fox
House Committee Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers ~Wired
U.S. listings are down 43% since 1995, while up in Toronto, Frankfurt, and London due to regulations like Sarbox ~ Pat Arbor @livevol
World:
Merkel says bond purchasing by bailout fund a possibility ~ RT @BloombergNews – Germany gets more exposed by the day
Questions:
- Will Germany cave to default threats, again, further exposing their deteriorating fiscal position to the political leaches in the periphery
- Would Germany rather be paid back in devalued Euros than not at all?
- Will the weakening German economy cause the Bundesbank to temper their resistance to printing?
The correlation between moves in Italian and Spanish bonds has risen sharply since March ~ Reuters
As Copper Prices Rise, English Churches Lose Roofs to Theft ~ iimag (reg. req.) – same problem during the housing bubble
"Finland and soon Germany will demand collateral via negative pledges" ~ zerohedge
"The crisis has not even started," said Jamil Baz, chief investment strategist at GLG Partners ~ FT (reg. req.)
China:
CSRC will cut the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors to $500 million in assets under management from $5 billion
New lending in China came in 17% below estimates
‘A more than 0.5% decline in deposits in April from the prior month may have shaken the Chinese government’s faith in loan growth as a policy tool’
China’s impact on world commodity markets is rising but remains smaller than that of the United States. ~ IMF
Central Banking:
Question: how does Bernanke retrain millions of people who were duped by low interest rates into real estate jobs and now need retrained?
Fed’s Diminishing Returns: QE1: +80%, QE2: +33%, Operation Twist: +29%. Large Shorts could create rally ~Bloobmerg
Vincent Reinhart thinks Fed did not act stronger because the effectiveness of their policy has been neutered. ~ CNBC
Great chart of "Federal Reserve Stimulus And Its Impact On Yields" ~ djfxtrader
Italy OECD 5-year growth estimate is 0.5%, lowest among 40 countries ~guardian
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