Tonight will be all quick hitters as the big news is sparse, to say the least. The Fed released the minutes of the September FOMC meeting. Besides discussing the idea of QE3, the most interesting read was that Fisher was not as hawkish as his NO VOTE seemed. This makes sense as his speeches this week have been pretty DOVISH and I had thought that he was contradicting himself.
Posts Tagged ‘swiss’
Notes From Underground: FOMC Minutes (Upon Further Review)
October 12, 2011Notes From Underground: A STARK Reminder of Merkel’s bad decision
September 11, 2011Many times NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND warned that Chancellor Merkel had made a grave error by failing to push for Axel Weber to assume the Presidency of the ECB after Jean-Claude Trichet. I argued that the German populace would be a more willing participant in an enhanced bailout facility if a strong anti-inflationist from Germany was at the helm of the mechanism of financial bailouts for the PIIGS. It seemed that President Sarkozy had “bested” Merkel and the German Chancellor was forced to abandon Weber and agree to a compromise, ECB President Mario Draghi. Friday’s announcement by Juergen Stark that he was resigning his position on the ECB Executive Board and Governing Council gave the markets a scare and led to a large selloff in the EURO and global equity markets.
Notes From Underground: Did I miss anything while I was away???
September 7, 2011The unemployment report on Friday was much weaker than expected as zero net jobs were created. More disheartening was that average hourly earnings produced a negative number, which failed to confirm and support the earlier released personal consumption data. The equity markets went into risk-off mode as the economy went into the Labor Day weekend in a very fragile state.
Notes From Underground: SettingThe Record Straight … Fair is Only a Line in Baseball
August 2, 2011The word out of Washington about the BUDGET RESOLUTION is that taxes ought to be raised out of fairness. The President of the U.S. is consistently talking about fair. Give up that specious argument. Is it fair that the savers of this country are being punished so as to bail out the WALL STREET TOO BIG TOO FAIL BANKS? Is it fair that an incompetent Treasury Secretary was allowed to obtain the Treasury position even though it appeared that he cleverly tried to avoid paying taxes? Is it fair that the Wall Street banks were bailed out while mortgage paying homeowners were granted no relief against the coming exploding ARMS mortgages that have worsened the foreclosure problems and continued being an albatross around the neck of the economy?
Notes From Underground: A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT STAND
July 27, 2011A house divided is of course one of Lincoln’s most famous speeches. Unfortunately, the speech can be directed against EUROPE or the U.S. Yes, the S&Ps and other equity indexes suffered a large selloff as investors are growing disillusioned with the divisiveness that is persisting from the halls of Washington. The ramping up of incendiary rhetoric from both sides of the aisle is finally irritating some investors to raise cash as fears increase that nobody is going to be able to “stop the trains.”
Notes From Underground: IT IS THAT TIME OF THE MONTH AGAIN? (TO VIEW THE PAINS OF LABOR)
July 7, 2011Yes, the ECB raised rates today and Trichet failed to listen to the wisdom offered by NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND. That means I have overestimated the wisdom of Trichet while underestimating the size of his ego. The rate rise to 1.5% was widely anticipated so the EURO was immediately sold but regained some strength after the ECB announced that it was WAVING THE MINIMUM CREDIT RATING FOR PORTUGUESE BONDS USED AS COLLATERAL FOR REPOS. As the ECB raises rates, it allows for weak collateral to be utilized thus allowing for a large liquidity infusion. This is a fine example of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor as bread is taken from the people with one hand and returned to them with the other and the people believe it is a miracle. Europe has become a “ball of confusion.” Why raise rates when you are simultaneously lowering credit standards to prevent a sovereign default?