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[Premium] Why the Spanish bailout may be to recap the banks instead of sovereign
2012-04-27 20:00 UTC by Edward Harrison

Ever since Willem Buiter mentioned the probability of a Spanish bailout some time in 2012, speculation has been rife about a Spanish bailout. In this column I argue that Spain is still too big to bail and that any bailout for Spain must therefore be of Spanish banks and not the Spanish sovereign. I believe this will happen and I will keep you...

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[Premium] Daily commentary: On the lower US nominal GDP growth numbers and the Fed
2012-04-27 19:00 UTC by Edward Harrison

The GDP numbers for the US came out again and they were weaker than anticipated, coming in at 2.2% for real GDP growth instead of the 2.5% expected. Nominal GDP growth was only 3.7%. That is not bullish for shares


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Breaking Down First Quarter 2012 GDP Numbers
2012-04-27 18:30 UTC by Guest Author

"Real final sales" and factory production continued to be supported by inventory building . Governments continued to shrink their spending, and they sucked -0.60% from the headline number. This report shows per capita disposable income is shrinking and that any improvements in consumer spending are likely unsustainable


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Weak GDP Report Pushes Dollar Down Further
2012-04-27 13:54 UTC by Marc Chandler

The details are a bit better as household consumption was stronger at 2.9% after a 2.1% pace in Q4 11. This accounted for about 2 percentage points of the 2.2% growth. How is the consumption being financed? Real disposable income rose 0.4% in Q1 after a 1.7% gain in Q4, which may help a bit, but it seems the key was the drop in savings from 4.5% to...

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Bill Gross: QE on hold but QE3 would be back on if jobs reports are weak
2012-04-27 12:00 UTC by Edward Harrison

Last month PIMCO founder and Chief Investment Officer Bill Gross said PIMCO sees a mortgage-backed QE3 from the Fed as likely. As a result, Pimco has increased its exposure to these. He spoke to Bloomberg television yesterday about how his views on this have changed and it depends on the upcoming jobs reports


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Full Text: S&P downgrades Spain two notches
2012-04-27 00:08 UTC by Edward Harrison

"We believe that the Kingdom of Spain's budget trajectory will likely deteriorate against a background of economic contraction in contrast with our previous projections. At the same time, we see an increasing likelihood that Spain's government will need to provide further fiscal support to the banking sector."


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[Premium] Daily commentary: On Dutch Austerity
2012-04-26 19:53 UTC by Edward Harrison

As I write this the lower house of Dutch Parliament is debating what and where to cut in order to get their budget under the 3% hurdle as quickly as possible


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The ECB is on Mars
2012-04-26 18:19 UTC by Macro Business

Collapsing credit demand ultimately leads to a loss of banking capital, which is the exact opposite of what the LTRO program was set up to achieve. Interestingly, as the charts below show, banks seem to think that there will be a slowing of the fall in credit demand in the next quarter across all markets. Given European fiscal policy is setting up...

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OPEC: near record production, spare capacity a concern
2012-04-26 17:51 UTC by Sober Look

In addition to the hole left by the Iran sanctions, the Saudis are pressured to pump more in order to meet their own rising domestic demand. This is putting strains on OPEC's spare capacity


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[Premium] Why the EU is temporarily dropping the 3% hurdle
2012-04-26 16:15 UTC by Edward Harrison

It looks like the EU has finally figured out that austerity is anti-growth and that in the EU context this is leading to debt deflation. The word on the street is that the EU is prepared to temporarily relax the 3% Maastricht hurdle. This article explains why


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[Premium] Is shale oil cheap?
2012-04-26 15:00 UTC by Edward Harrison

There is some evidence that recently discovered shale oil fields cannot be successfully exploited at prices under $100 a barrel


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[Premium] Is shale oil cheap? originally appeared on Credit Writedowns

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European Policy Shifting Toward Growth Before Key Elections
2012-04-26 13:54 UTC by Marc Chandler

ECB President Draghi's support for a growth pact for Europe is important, perhaps under-appreciated by the market. This is not simply a tactic to deflect attention from the IMF's call that the ECB ease monetary policy further. The ever politically adept Merkel recognizes the push toward a growth pact but will not allow Germany to be out maneuvered....

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[Premium] Expect a weak US jobs report in May
2012-04-26 12:48 UTC by Edward Harrison

The jobless claims came out again today and the numbers were weak


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[Premium] Expect a weak US jobs report in May originally appeared on Credit Writedowns

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Chart of the day: US jobs recovered since crisis began by industry
2012-04-26 12:22 UTC by Global Macro Monitor

Today we look at the jobs recovery by various industries


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Chart of the day: US jobs recovered since crisis began by industry originally appeared on Credit Writedowns

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Japan’s fuel imports driving trade deficit to record
2012-04-26 00:17 UTC by Sober Look

As predicted earlier this year, Japan continues to struggle with its energy needs. The chart below shows the recent trend in Japan's imports of residual fuel oil. These fuel imports are quickly translating into a rising trade deficit


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[Premium] Daily commentary: On Austerity and Britain’s double dip
2012-04-25 19:55 UTC by Edward Harrison

Last January I called the contrast between the US and the UK "the best real-time economic experiment we can have on what does and doesn’t happen as a result of government spending." My point was that the two economies have had similar trajectories and have similar economic models. Watching how Britain using austerity compares with...

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EU Restarts Talks With Hungary
2012-04-25 19:30 UTC by Win Thin

We must stress that opening talks does not mean that a deal is going to be easy. In our view, Hungary did the bare minimum to get the EU back to the negotiating table, and that difficult negotiations remain ahead. On a separate but related note, Hungary still faces a decision by the EU on an Excessive Deficit Procedure. The government has sent a...

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Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein on Bloomberg Television
2012-04-25 18:30 UTC by Edward Harrison

Bloomberg TV spoke to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein today in a much discussed interview. Below is the video and partial transcript of that interview. I provide it without comment


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The Coming European Growth Pact
2012-04-25 15:13 UTC by Marc Chandler

Recent events in Europe mark the beginning of the push back against German-led austerity, but it is even bigger as the IMF's call for the ECB to cut rates illustrates


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[Premium] Tracking My List of Ten Surprises for 2012
2012-04-25 14:26 UTC by Edward Harrison

I thought now would be a good time to see how my ten surprises for 2012 are tracking as we are nearly a third of the way through the year. I posted these as my first weekly newsletter and these are events that have 1-in-3 odds of happening but which I believe have a more than 50 percent likelihood of occurring in


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Chart of the day: year over year growth in Greek deposits of non-financial customers
2012-04-25 13:30 UTC by Sober Look

The Greek private sector can generally only rely on the Greek banking system for credit. At the same time the Greek private sector is moving liquidity out of the country, dramatically shrinking the availability of credit


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Bank of Canada: House price-to-income ratio outstrips norm by 35%
2012-04-25 13:13 UTC by Edward Harrison

I have noted a number of times in the past that household debt levels in Canada have reached worrying levels. I am not the only one on to this. Canadian central bank head Mark Carney was in the news yesterday sounding the alarm on this as well. Mark Carney noted that Canadian household debt is being driven by a rise in house prices that has caused...

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Steve Keen: The Maastricht Treaty is a suicide pact for European leaders
2012-04-25 12:00 UTC by Edward Harrison

Professor Steve Keen was on Tonight with Vincent Browne in Ireland last week, where the topic understandably was the European Union. The question for Steve was how the Maastricht Treaty fits his economic paradigm, which follows Hyman Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis. Below is a 10-minute clip from the show


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[Premium] More on Apple’s Fantastic Quarter
2012-04-25 11:50 UTC by Edward Harrison

A brief note on why Apple did so well this quarter


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[Premium] More on Apple’s Fantastic Quarter originally appeared on Credit Writedowns

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[Premium] Apple almost gets its whisper number
2012-04-24 21:18 UTC by Edward Harrison

This is just an update to this morning's post. The numbers were profit of $12.30 a share ($11.62 billion), up from $6.40 a share ($5.98 billion) last year


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Chart of the day: Life insurers won’t meet nominal return targets
2012-04-24 16:00 UTC by Sober Look

JPMorgan recently performed a study on the composition of portfolios managed by life insurance companies. The study looked at the top 20 life insurance firms using their regulatory filings. These are the portfolios set up to support projected policy claims. The reason it is important to measure the composition and the changes in such portfolios is...

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[Premium] Daily Commentary: On Case-Shiller and New Home Sales
2012-04-24 15:00 UTC by Edward Harrison

The big US data today was in the housing markets as we got both the Case-Shiller and the housing starts numbers. Here's my take on the news


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Graphite: Time to Invest, or Flavor of the Day?
2012-04-24 13:00 UTC by Casey Research

Graphite has been getting a lot of buzz recently, raising bullish expectations among some investors and even talk of a future bubble. Why? The price has risen steadily over the past couple of years and attracted a lot of attention. Let's have a look at why some market participants are excited about this mineral and see if it's worth our investment...

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[Premuim] What to expect from Apple’s earnings
2012-04-24 12:00 UTC by Edward Harrison

Apple reports earnings after the close of business today. This will be a closely watched report. Here are the things to look for


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[Premium] Is Apple worth it?
2012-04-23 20:41 UTC by Edward Harrison

There has been a lot of chatter about Apple recently because of the monster move it has sustained in the first four months of the year. Bloomberg reports that Apple gained more than $250 billion in market share in just four months to April 9. That's more than IBM’s current value. Other impressive figures are being bandied about like: Apple...

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Argentina Fundamentals Still Deteriorating
2012-04-23 18:20 UTC by Win Thin

A look at the fundamentals shows why Fernandez is engaging in such visible theatrics, which also includes recent vitriol regarding the Falkland Islands. Simply put, we think economic stresses are intensifying. How deep the stresses will get is yet to be determined


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Judging by Ireland, Spanish banks to take a lot more credit writedowns
2012-04-23 18:00 UTC by Sober Look

Ireland dealt fairly quickly with its property market bubble by effectively and forcefully nationalizing and recapitalizing its banking sector. They clearly still have a serious problem on their hands, but the nation has been aggressive in addressing the issue of distressed real estate loans. In contrast, Spain's banking system is nowhere close to...

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[Premium] Daily commentary: On negative German data surprises
2012-04-23 17:51 UTC by Edward Harrison

I have been saying that I expect German data to disappoint and come in on the softer side. Why? This post explains


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German decoupling is an illusion
2012-04-23 17:08 UTC by Sober Look

The concept of German decoupling from the Eurozone recession may have been wishful thinking. The latest German Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) has converged with that of the Eurozone as a whole. Manufacturing PMI is a closely watched index and tends to be a leading indicator for the GDP. In response, Spain's 5yr sovereign CDS hit a...

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