Archive for the 'Recession' Category
U.S. main profitable indicators’ January decline suggests weak growth ahead
The index of main profitable indicators declined 0.1% in January 2008 — its forth consecutive monthly decline, the Conference Board announced Thursday, suggesting the U.S. economy is likely to register weak growth in the period ahead.
One bright spot: the group’s coincident index, which meas…
Why the $330 billion auction-rate securities market failed
As I posted final week, Auction rate securities (ARSs) is a $330 billion market for long-term bonds that are supposed to pay lower rates considering their interest rates are set through auctions. Municipalities who issued ARSs are suffering considering 1,000 of these auctions floped and instead of p…
Economists say auction-rate bond failures underscore need for MBIA, Ambac re-capitalization
Amid calls for disclosure of more knowledge on bidding for auction-rate bonds after dealers stopped buying the securities, two economists told BloggingStocks Friday that the problem of a lack of investor demand speaks directly to the need to re-capitalize bond insurers MBIA and Ambac.
“The proble…
Is Ben Bernanke’s ’spoonful of sugar’ working?
Is Ben Bernanke the new Mary Poppins?
His “spoon full of sugar” of choice is slashing 225 basis points from the federal funds rate since September. nowadays, he told the U.S. Congress that more rate cuts will probably fitting.
“In part as the aftermath of the developments in financial mark…
Fed may cut rates again to lower borrowing costs for corporations, households
The Fed may have to lower interest rates again considering preceding cuts have folded to lower borrowing costs for many corporations and households, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday.
Despite 125 basis points of rate reductions by the Fed by a nine day span in January 2008, companies are paying m…
With Societe Generale raising capital at reduction, what is value of US banks?
Societe Generale, in trouble considering of losses suffered due to transactions by one trader, will raise nearly $8 billion. The rights offering is at an astonishing 39% reduction to the price as of the Friday shut.
According to The Wall Street Journal “the bank plus said write-downs linked to fa…
As writer’s strike ends, attention turns to media stocks
The strike by the Writers Guild of America, which has crippled production of TV show and films, is likely to end that week, according to several media sources. The division within the writers and studios by revenue from Net subject matter appears to have been addressed. According to The Wall Str…
RBC consumer confidence index drops to lowest level since 2002
Consumer confidence in the economy dropped even lower in February 2008, on concerns that job growth will slow and that the U.S. economy may fall into a recession, RBC Bank announced Friday, in its monthly survey.
The RBC Cash Index dropped to 48.5 in February 2008 from 56.3 in January 2008. T…
Economists survey puts chance of 2008 U.S. recession at 50/50
The U.S. economy will grow at a minuscule rate in Q1 2008 and the odds of a recession in 2008 stand at 50/50, according to a survey of economists conducted by Bloomberg News.
The 62-economist survey expects the world’s largest economy to grow just 0.5% in Q1 2008, Bloomberg News reported. Mea…
S&P looks to fix credit rating problems — too little, too late?
Standard & Poors, a division of McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP), has joined Moody’s (NYSE: MCO) and Fitch in announcing reforms in the wake of the criticism for their role in the subprime fiasco.
S&P says it will hire an ombudsman to investigate conflicts of interest and bring in an external …
Applying lessons learned from virtual economies to our own
For those of you living in a cave, virtual gaming is on fire. humans are spending hours, days, months of their lives in virtual worlds like SecondLife. These are truly virtual worlds, total with their own currencies that grease economies in which participants build virtual businesses and bring h…
Bank of England cuts benchmark interest rate by a quarter point
In a widely expected move, the Bank of England lowered a key short-term interest rate by one-quarter point to 5.25%, the bank announced, in a statement.
“The prospects for output growth abroad have deteriorated and the disruption to global financial markets has continued,” the BOE said.
Th…
U.S. initial jobless claims fall, but remain above Fed’s ceiling
Initial jobless claims fell to 356,000 to for the week ended February 2 from the preceding week, but came in above the 344,000 consensus estimate, the U.S. Labor department announced Thursday. Claims for the preceding week were revised up 3,000 to 378,000.
Also, the four-week moving average j…
Top 5 election lessons so far
From the home office in Burlington County, New Jersey. I give you the top 5 lessons learned from the presidential election so far. The results are determined through a totally arbitrary process of my own creation.
Super Tuesday — The mother of all primaries produced plenty of drama — for p…
