I generally remain noncommittal about giving specific predictions about the future because there is simply no way toward predilection. We can think about probabilities as a guide for analysis, particularly in setting investment guidelines, but to offer targets for factors like GDP or some stock index is pointless. Even now, with all that is taking place of economic unraveling, there [...]
It had been relatively quiet in China apart from the continued downtrend in economic activity and especially expectations for economic activity. Earlier, as industrial production and a slew of other economic accounts fell to multi-year (and multi-decade in some cases) lows, talk of the Chinese bubbles receded as it was viewed almost a surety that the PBOC would now be [...]
In March 2009, only two days after the exact bottom in US stocks, Alan Greenspan took the pages of the Wall Street Journal to declare, declaratively, that the Fed was not to blame for the catastrophe. His “evidence” was based on this single supposition: The second, and far more credible, explanation [for the housing bubble] agrees that it was indeed [...]
The latest volatility in housing construction figures transferred to the single-family segment, as apartment construction has now entered full-scale languishing. In some respects that is contradictory to 2014’s view of a boom in rental properties, but I wonder if the lack of household formation is finally starting to catch up – rent or not. There is already an immense shadow [...]
I really hate the term bubble. With regard to markets, frankly it has no meaning. One man's bubble is another man's rational bull market. There is no agreed upon valuation metric which, once exceeded, pegs a market or a sector or a stock as a bubble. My view on the matter is that "bubbles' are about behavior, about seemingly normal [...]
It is amazing how much “we” forget in the entire short space of “cycles.” That may be a function of an overload of information coming in from all sides, but I doubt it. I have always thought that more was better in that regard. Instead, I prefer to think of it as another monetary corruption. I am speaking about the [...]
The retail sales release for August was actually quite alarming. The track of sales pretty much confirms the end of the spring “bounce” that showed up in Gallup’s figures, but the real concern is that the “bounce” itself was never more than a minor adjustment; an absence of further erosion as it were. That is nothing like what is being [...]
Very much in-line with the stubborn and creative effort to convince you that the economy has healed, policymakers have taken to the notion of “resiliency” as they seek to exit the QE business once again. Janet Yellen seems to work that adjective into every speech she gives, as if the power of her voice were enough to simply make it [...]
The actual total accumulated balance for margin debt in reported stock accounts fell in July from June’s record amount. But even with a decline in stock-related debt investors moved even further toward complacency, as declines in free credit and available cash more than outpaced the drop in margin. As a result, net worth has never been lower as we have [...]
It seems as if there is a little more complexity taking place in mortgage finance, and therefore the housing “market”, as the simplified idea of rates running the show isn’t holding water. On the surface, the general theme is one that contours to the outline of conventional mortgage interest as it ran through last year’s selloff. It stands to reason [...]
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