MONTHLY ECONOMIC DATA TABLES Source: US Treasury Click here to sign up for our free weekly e-newsletter. For information on Alhambra Investment Partners' money management services and global portfolio approach to capital preservation, Douglas R. Terry, CFA is reachable at dterry@4kb.d43.myftpupload.com
As part of the "stimulus" passed as a result of the great recession, unemployment benefits were extended to 99 weeks via the Federal government. Those extended benefits are now coming to an end (via the NYT): Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans are receiving their final unemployment checks sooner than they expected, even though Congress renewed extended benefits until the [...]
Thinking Things Over May 28, 2012 Volume II, Number 21: Remembering Milton Friedman in the Torpor of 1980 By John L. Chapman, Ph.D. Washington, D.C. Amidst continuing nervousness about the Eurozone and slower global growth, political debate in the U.S. is centered around the best path forward to return to sustainable prosperity. The Wall Street Journal reminded us this [...]
In the last update, the S&P 500 Cap-Weighted Index was at a crossroads. Well, the index proceeded to break support at the 50-day Moving Average before testing the 200-day. The index has returned 11.87% so far this year. The S&P 500 Equal-Weighted index ((RSP)) is set up so that every stock in the index has the same weight, thereby eliminating [...]
Guest post from friend of Alhambra, Brian Cronin: Greece has to be the only country in the world that actually celebrates the beginning of a war rather than the end of it as its national day. On October 28th 1940, Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas rejected an ultimatum from Italian Ambassador Emanuele Grazzi to allow Axis troops to occupy certain strategic [...]
It is said that bull markets climb a wall of worry but if that were true, then Wall and Broad should look like downtown Pamplona in July with market bears gored, trampled, spindled, mutilated and wrapped around the buttonwood tree. The list of worries for investors seems to grow by the day with slowing Chinese growth center stage one day [...]
By John L. Chapman, Ph.D. Washington, D.C. May 28, 2012 The current debate in Washington over fiscal policy parallels that of the Presidential campaign: how do taxes and government spending affect the economy? Does more spending “grow” the economy, as modern-day Keynesians suggest? Can progressive tax increases benignly cut any government deficit? Both theory and historical evidence suggest otherwise. Writing [...]
Guest post from friend of Alhambra, Brian Cronin: I could have called this essay “The Pain in Spain”, but there are so many pieces lamely playing on the “My Fair Lady” song that I decided to be a little more esoteric. In 1896, Francisco Tarrega wrote a wonderful piece of music for the guitar called “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” (Memories [...]
Facebook finally came public last week and the first day of trading saw the stock basically close flat. The financial commentariat is in a lather over the lack of a first day rise in price. Forbes, for instance, has an article titled The Failure of Facebook's IPO. That is just one of many articles on the subject, some of them [...]
Austere: adj; markedly simple or unadorned The G-8 met this weekend at Camp David to address the failure of austerity in promoting economic growth, specifically in Europe where it has allegedly been practiced. Of course, austerity, as modernly defined by a certain segment of the economics profession, has nothing at all to do with the definition from Merriam-Webster cited above. [...]
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