Bailout and Financial Crisis News

Start Spread’n the newsPark Avenue’s failed todayOld Blue Eyes would weep…by Soylent Green is PeopleFrom the FDIC: Valley National Bank, Wayne, New Jersey, Assumes All of the Deposits of the Park Avenue Bank, New York, New York The Park Avenue Bank, New York, New York, was closed today by the New York State Banking Department, which [...]

The question we have been focused on for some time now is whether we end up with inflation, or deflation, and what that endgame looks like. It is one of the most important questions an investor must ask today, and getting the answer right is critical. This week, we have a guest writer who takes [...]

A day after Bernanke testified in Congress that “we anticipate that inflation will remain low” due to “the slack in resource utilization”, “notwithstanding recent increases in the prices of oil and other commodities,” gold is just 2.6% off all time record highs. In fact, of the 19 commodities in the CRB index, it is the only one with just [...]

Initial Jobless Claims totaled 621k, right in line with expectations BUT the main positive surprise was the 15k drop in Continuing Claims off its record high which came in 120k less than expected and was the first decline since January. The insured unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5%, the highest since 1982 where it got as high as 5.4%. [...]

ECB President Trichet in his press conference is not breaking any new ground but did reiterate the belief of some that rates could go lower if need be (but i’m sure very reluctantly). He did lower both his growth and inflation forecasts for ‘09 and for ‘10, he modestly cut his GDP estimate but kept the inflation estimate unchanged. [...]

Bernanke’s testimony on the economy in front of the House Budget Committee strikes a similar tone as the previous FOMC statement with respect to economic activity and the less negative theme but still expects rises in the unemployment rate over the next few months as it lags. The expectations of a 2nd half rebound, albeit modest, still has caveats as [...]

The May ISM services index was 44, 1 pt less than expected but up a touch from April and is at the highest since Oct ‘08. The Business Activity component fell almost 3 pts to 42.4 but is in line with the 6 month avg and is about 9 pts above the Nov low. Unlike within the ISM mfr’g, [...]

April Pending Home Sales, a measure of contract signings and thus a precursor to the existing home sales data, rose 6.7% m/o/m, much better than expectations of a gain of .5% and follows a 3.2% m/o/m rise in March and a 2% gain in Feb. The gain was led by a 32.6% gain in the Northeast followed by a [...]

China is once again proving that it’s the most important country in the world right now both in terms of its own growth as the 3rd biggest economy in the world and also its impact on commodity prices and the subsequent benefit that it gives to a variety of emerging markets that produce them. Both the Chinese PMI (mostly [...]

With the week beginning with a much better than expected May Conference Board consumer confidence # led by the future expectations component, followed by Wednesday’s 2 point drop in the weekly ABC poll, today’s final May U of Michigan confidence # was a touch better than expected at 68.7 and up from the preliminary reading of 67.9 and up [...]

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