-
Sea Change at the Fed "Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change Into something rich and strange" (The Tempest - Shakespeare) The term "sea change" has come to mean a profound transformation ever since...
-
Should the Fed Cut Interest Rates? The Shocker in the Employment Numbers Should the Federal Reserve Cut Interest Rates? Will A Cut Make Any Difference? How Housing Woes Hurt the Rest of the Economy Home Again, Home Again The unemployment numbers came in today, and if you look under the hood of the data...
-
The Mortgage Pig in the Python Inflation is Baked into the CPI Numbers The Mortgage Pig in the Python Housing Starts Look to Stop A Few Thoughts on the Recent Credit Crisis Half of All Hedge Funds Gone? Golf, Weddings, and Europe With the economy increasingly looking like it will slow down materially...
-
Introduction This week in a very special Outside the Box we have an investment outlook tour de force. My friend and South African business partner Dr. Prieur du Plessis gathered a group of some of the more interesting investment managers in the industry, along with your humble analyst, and let us have...
-
$250 Billion in Subprime Losses? Is the subprime mortgage market collapsing before our eyes, or did we avoid a disaster as Bear Stearns stepped up to the plate with $3.2 billion to help its ailing funds? As we will see from the data, the problems in the subprime world are not over. The Fat Lady has not...
-
Introduction This week we look at the US mortgage market to see what fallout there is from the subprime mortgage woes. It is both less of a problem and/or more of a problem, depending on your perspective, as I predicted it would be last year. Score one for your analyst, which said score is needed as...
-
Introduction Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am Stuck in the middle with you! - Stealers Wheel, 1974 The recent data on the economy is stronger than was expected. Does this mean that the slowdown we have seen for the past few quarters is behind us? Other data suggests the economy...
-
Introduction This week we look at the growing disconnect between the US economy and the stock markets. One is slowing and the other is exploding to the upside. One of my mentors once said that it is the duty of the markets to prove the most-possible people wrong. So far, I am clearly in the wrong category...
-
Introduction This weekend I am in La Jolla at good friend Rob Arnott's conference. Princeton Professor Burton Malkiel, of Random Walk fame, will be one of the luminaries at the annual Research Affiliates Advisory Panel. So, with that thought in mind, this week we take a seemingly random walk through...
-
Introduction As I glanced over at the TV in my office this morning, the latest news on the ticker wire was that American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (AHM) is trading down over 16%. While the company is not of any particular importance to me, it spurred my thinking regarding how the housing market...