Bernanke critics are on the attack (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
What is the most likely cause today of civil unrest? Immigration. Gay Marriage. Abortion. The Results of Election Day. The Mosque at Ground Zero. Nope.
Try the Federal Reserve. November 3rd is when the Federal Reserve’s next policy committee meeting ends, and if you thought this was just another boring money meeting you would be wrong. It could be the most important meeting in Fed history, maybe. The US central bank is expected to announce its next move to boost the faltering economic recovery. To say there has been considerable debate and anxiety among Fed watchers about what the central bank should do would be an understatement. Chairman Ben Bernanke has indicated in recent speeches that the central bank plans to try to drive down already low-interest rates by buying up long-term bonds. A number of people both inside the Fed and out believe this is the wrong move. But one website seems to believe that Ben’s plan might actually lead to armed conflict. Last week, the blog, Zerohedge wrote, paraphrasing a top economic forecaster David Rosenberg, that it believed the Fed’s plan is not only moronic, but "positions US society one step closer to civil war if not worse."
I’m not sure what "if not worse," is supposed to mean. But, with the Tea Party gaining followers, the idea of civil war over economic issues doesn’t seem that far-fetched these days. And Ron Paul definitely thinks the Fed should be ended. In TIME’s recent cover story on the militia movement many said these groups are powder kegs looking for a catalyst. So why not a Fed policy committee…
In October the FDIC held a large auction of properties it had acquired as a result of failed banks in Georgia. I thought this was an interesting story and wrote about it before the auction took place. It was my intention to write about it again after the results of the auction were released. No such luck. The FDIC has decided to keep us in the dark on this one. The following is an email I got from JP King, the auction house who ran the Georgia auction:
“Unfortunately, FDIC has prohibited us from releasing any information regarding the auction. We’ve been trying to get them to let us release the results, but they have denied our requests. We aren’t allowed to release any details.”
I would have thought that the results of a pubic auction of properties owned by FDIC would have to be publicly disclosed. So why is the FDIC trying to cover this up?
The answer is that the REO problem for the D.C. lenders and the FDIC is reaching a crisis level. In spite of every effort to avoid foreclosures the fact is that the number of properties owned by the Feds is rising on a daily basis.
There are approximately 55 million mortgages outstanding today. At least 10% will/have gone into default before this is over. Of those half will result in foreclosure. These numbers create an estimate of the Federal share of REO at about 1.5 mm homes. Depending on unemployment and the economy going forward that number could be much higher. Before this is over the Feds could own up to 5% of all residential RE.
D.C. is struggling with this. The Treasury Department has created HAMP and HARP, two programs designed to restructure bad mortgages and keep homeowners in the house at all costs. So far the results from these programs have been terrible. More than half of the restructured loans re-default within nine months.
Fannie and Freddie are going into the rental business with their REO. They are charging “market rates” of rent to defaulted owners who are willing to stay in the home. Given that market rents today are equal to the costs of ownership I doubt that the new ‘Renters’ are going to be able to make the payments. So this program…
The clampdown on China's shadow banking continues today, with Money Rates at Record Highs as PBOC Lets Cash Crunch Build China’s benchmark money-market rates climbed to records as the central bank refrained from using reverse-repurchase agreements to address a cash crunch in the world’s second-biggest economy.
The seven-day repurchase rate, which measures interbank funding availability, rose 270 basis points, or 2.70 percentage points, to 10.77 percent in Shanghai, according to a daily fixing announced by the National Interbank Funding Center. That was the highest in data going back to March 2003. The one-day rate rose by an unprecedented 527 basis points to an all-time high of 12.85 percent, a separate fixing sh...
The world has been watching every peep, sniffle, or innuendo associated with any voting member of the FOMC. What is the future of the latest in their ongoing market manipulation, in which money is printed to buy bonds to hold down interest rates, spur corporate borrowing, and artificially inflate stocks? Lately, that’s all investors have cared about.
Yes, it seems that all anyone has been talking about is the Federal Reserve and the timing of their “tapering” off on quant easing. There was a lot of anticipation going into this latest meeting. Fed chairman Bernanke said on Wednesday that if the economy continues to improve, their asset-purchasing program could start to wind down in late 2013 and conclude in 2014.
Stocks sold off on the news and Treasury yields spiked to 2011 highs. Int...
PDC Energy, Inc. ("PDC" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: PDCE) today announced that it closed yesterday, June 18, 2013, on the previously disclosed sale of its non-core Colorado natural gas assets.
The Company's non-core Colorado assets were sold to Caerus Oil and Gas LLC for approximately $185 million in net proceeds, subject to customary post-closing adjustments. Under the purchase and sale agreement, the transaction was given economic effect as of January 1, 2013. The assets sold are approximately 99% natural gas in terms of reserves and include an estimated 85 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe) of net proved developed producing reserves as of December 31, 2012. The assets produced approximately 40 million net cubic feet of natural gas equivalent per day in the first quarter of...
It seems liquidity (or counterparty mistrust) is beginning to reach extreme levels in China as the nation's banking system is now quoting overnight repo transactions at 25%. The explosion in funding costs echoes the collapse in trust (and surge in TED spread) among US banks in the run-up to the Lehman bankruptcy. MSCI Asia-Pac stocks are down over 3% with China's Shanghai Composite -2.5% at seven-month lows.
China’s 1-day Repo Rate Climbs to Highest Since at Least 2006
MU - Micron Technology, Inc. – Options traders appear to be snapping up out of the money call options on Micron Technology this morning ahead of the company’s third-quarter earnings report after the closing bell today. Shares in the name kicked off the trading session in rally mode, rising as much as 2.6% to a six-year high of $14.11 in the early going, but have since turned negative to stand 0.15% lower on the day at $13.73 as of 11:10 a.m. ET. Micron’s shares are up roughly 130% since this time last year. July expiry call optio...
With nothing of international significance to predetermine US market direction, the trade from the opening bell was one of marking time in advance of the June FOMC press release at 2 PM and more importantly Chairman Bernanke's hour-long press conference at 2:30. Prior to 2 PM the S&P 500 traded in a narrow negative range and hit its intraday high at 2:01 PM, up 0.04%, Then began a three-stage selloff. The first was a brief knee-jerk sell when the Fed summary was released, one that was essentially reversed a few minutes later. The second started about 15-minutes into Bernanke's press conference, again one that was partially reversed. The third selloff came during the final 30 minutes with no reversal. The index closed down 1.39%, a microscopic 0.02 points off its in...
No change to the statement as expected and Ben is speaking now. Basically he is dovish – one takeaway which I mentioned quite a few months ago but he reiterated today. The 6.5% unemployment rate is a threshold NOT a trigger. What that means is if inflation is benign when 6.5% unemployment returns, the Fed will be in no rush to raise interest rates. i.e. the goalposts are soft, nor hard. The market rallied on that… but it's not new news really.
Also the majority of members do not anticipate selling MBS off the balance sheet – this is part and parcel with the view that the balance sheet will not...
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Click here for the latest Stock World Weekly. Sign in with your PSW user name and password, or sign up for a free trial. There's an interesting option trade on LULU presented in the newsletter this week.
Trivia on lululemon via Paul Price, article found in NYTimes.
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This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).
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By Craigzooka
I am going to share with you how I manage my IRA and the power of reducing your cost basis. My goal each year is a 20% return in my IRA. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't, but I believe that all of my success is due to reducing my cost basis. To illustrate the power of reducing your cost basis here are some trades we did last year. These trades are taken from an educational portfolio we ran in a paper-trading account for a little more than a year.
We bought RIG on 5/15/2012 for $44.13, sold it on 1/18/2013 for $46 but booked a profit of $1,154.
We bought MT on 1/4/2012 for $19.24, sold it on 12/21/2012 for $15 but booked a profit of $454.
We bought CHK on 1/27/2012 for $21.93, sold it on 10/19/2012 for $18 b...
Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.
Courtesy of NASA
The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...
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Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi. Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward. So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(