The stakes just got higher in the 3-D chess game China’s playing for natural resources. On one dimension, the Middle Kingdom is on the offensive. But on another, it’s playing strictly defense… Beijing is ordering state-owned businesses to explore a bid for PotashCorp (POT), the Canadian fertilizer giant that’s already fending off a hostile bid [...]
There was a nice little snippet on Reuters that I said I’d get to yesterday in the… Source
The stock market in the US was flat on Friday. Gold rose $13. China edged out Japan to become the world’s second largest economy. Bonds rose. And the dollar fell. The Bloomberg report: The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc.’s business barometer rose to 62.3 this month, exceeding the median forecast of economists surveyed which anticipated [...]
The poor recovery. It seemed to be doing so well. And now look at it. Fallen on hard times. Down on its luck. Worn out. “Unusually uncertain,” is how Ben Bernanke explains the situation. What he means by that is that he doesn’t have any more idea of what is going on than he did [...]
Yesterday, the United Nations released a new report suggesting it’s time to stop using the dollar as the world’s single major reserve currency, noting it has shown “not to be a stable store of value,” and recommending its replacement with the IMF’s currency basket, called special drawing rights (SDRs). The report came out of the [...]
NEW YORK (Reuters) – “Consumer sentiment rose in June to its highest since January… Source
Reuters — “Internationally, where business units account for about one-quarter of… Source
Unsurprisingly, an “improving” economy that doesn’t include any jobs growth isn’t going to help anyone pay their bills. As a result, bankruptcy filings continued to increase in May to one of the highest daily levels we’ve seen in about five years. According to Reuters: “There were 133,459 U.S. bankruptcy petitions filed in May, 10 percent [...]
(Reuters) – “U.S. credit card delinquencies fell for the fourth straight month in… Source
Gold is charging up to new highs, so it’s no surprise that the level of interest in this financial asset is charging up as well. Last week I did interviews with CNN, CNBC, USA Today and Reuters, and in most cases a specific question came up – “Should people be buying or selling gold right [...]
This week, manufacturing and transportation executives met at a Reuters Summit in Chicago to discuss ongoing problems in the sector and the economy. They also reflected on the frighteningly lightening fast 1,000 point drop and rebound in the Dow that was likely caused by algorithm-driven trading. Manufacturers argued that they must operate within a tight [...]
I was wondering why the Reuters website wasn’t loading on my computer… Source
The Reuters/Michigan index of consumer sentiment tumbled four points in April… Source
From Reuters: China’s $7.24 billion deficit in March, the first time the trade… Source
According to numbers recently released, consumer confidence is still unchanged from last month…. meaning it’s weak. Confidence rose some last year, but the numbers have been sticky at low levels of late due to persistent unemployment and more restricted access to credit. According to Reuters: “The final March reading for the surveys’ overall index on [...]
WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – “The number of U.S. workers filing new… Source
Reuters reports today that January unemployment rates increased in 363 US metro areas… and nearly 200 of them had rates exceeding 10 percent. The unemployment freight train has perhaps found the brakes, but it’s nowhere near coming to a stop. What Happened to Jobs? originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, offers a [...]
Stocks up, gold down. Once again yesterday, investors demonstrated their preference for paper over the shiny yellow metal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average notched a slight 3-point gain, while gold tumbled about $17 an ounce. This divergence between stocks and gold is not enormous, but it is telling. Most investors believe the credit crisis is [...]
It hardly sounds like a groundbreaking realization from legendary investor and “Oracle of Omaha” Warren Buffett. Of course, there is the rustic way in which he phrases it. As New York Times’ chief mergers and acquisitions reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin quotes, “Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.” Just as a woman with [...]
A new projection is now showing that roughly 1,000 US banks may fail because of the financial crisis that uncovered the toxic assets hidden on bank balance sheets. According to Reuters: “James Dunne, senior managing principal of Sandler O’Neill, said 300 to 400 banks could be seized this year, especially as institutions start to deal [...]
