Interest Rates
The U.S. Federal Reserve has kept interest rates artificially low in order to stabilize the economy downturn of 2008 and 2009. Is it about time the Federal Reserve raises interest rates? Can our economy handle it? You see, under low interest rates, consumers and firms find it easier…
The verdict is in… Last week, at the end of its regularly scheduled meeting, the Federal Reserve said: 1) It would continue to reduce the amount of money it creates each month. The Fed said it will be out of the money printing business by the end of…Some of the biggest names in investing publicly stated months ago that the U.S. dollar would fall hard against other world currencies. Big investors, like Warren Buffett, have actually made investment bets the dollar would fall. Why hasn't it happened? Patience, my dear reader, patience. The financial markets…
The Federal Reserve has yet to announce when it will start to increase interest rates in the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, there seems to be disagreement within the central bank’s affiliates regarding its loose monetary policy. The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, James Bullard, recently…
With the uproar in Europe continuing unabated, the rush into the safety of bonds through “safe” countries like Germany and the U.S. is doing much to distort the mechanism of the financial markets, throwing a monkey wrench into the investment strategy of many people. With the yield of…
Line up, dear reader. It’s time to pay the government to hold your money. The economy is barely showing any signs of life…meanwhile the government and the Fed are trying everything they can to get gross domestic product (GDP) growth going again. One area for economic stimulus that…
Things are looking up for the economy again. Unfortunately, things are not always as they seem. The U.S. Commerce Department said that the U.S. economy grew at 2.5% in the third quarter—the fastest pace in a year. Moody’s Investor Services last week raised the corporate ratings of both…
Stocks have become severely oversold. The stock market is acting as if we are already in a recession. The dividend yields on many major corporations are back up over four percent...in an environment where the 10-year U.S. Treasury is yielding 1.9%. The stock market is saying that it…
During the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee meeting on September 21, the Fed pulled yet another rabbit out of its hat of monetary tricks. From what increasingly appears to be an empty hat, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke pulled out a $400-billion plan to buy long-term treasuries while selling…
No, no, no! They’ve got it all wrong! The actions of the government and the Fed are contra to what the economy needs to get it going! More damage is being caused to the economy than good. You’ll read a lot today about the Federal Reserve’s statement yesterday…
Gold prices rising for 10 years straight…the money supply greatly expanded…the printing press for dollars running overtime…am I the only one concerned about rapid inflation? I rarely read or hear a report talking about today’s rising prices or the hyperinflation we may sustain in the years ahead. We…
The simple question: why haven’t jobs been created in the U.S. despite the trillions of dollars the government has thrown at the economy? There are several answers to this question. There is also a new theory I have been working on, as to why jobs in this country…
There’s an organization that’s been around for about 235 years. It’s more like a business today, taking in money and paying its bills. After World War II, this business really got into high gear. It started exporting its goods all over the world. It actually lent money to…
The stock market is showing real strength at this time. A lot of stocks that were hit hard during the market’s recent correction are fighting back and making good progress in their share prices. Consider Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE/CAT), which is an important benchmark stock to follow. The company’s…
I think investors really want to be buyers of stock at this time, but there isn’t much of a catalyst to do so. Institutional investors are buying, but they’re also playing on the market’s volatility, accentuating the results. Reality is beginning to set in now and there’s a…
The Federal Reserve just met for its Federal Open Market Committee meeting and I can tell you I was more nervous after reading the Fed statement than before. It became clearer the Fed is quite nervous about the condition of the economy and where it is heading. The…
They’re back… After shying away from buying U.S. Treasuries, as the Federal Reserve was using its QE2 to do its own buying of government bonds, China increased its holdings of U.S. government debt for the first time in six months this April. China holds about $1.149 trillion of…
Below I list five facts about the stock market, all very bullish cases for stock prices to rise in the immediate term. According to Bloomberg’s survey of 9,000 stock analysts, the S&P 500 companies will earn 18% more in 2011 than they did in 2010. Despite this, the…
In my daily writings, my goal is not to continuously be the bearer of bad news. When it comes to the economy, my goal is to educate my readers as to the severe structural economic problems the U.S. faces in the hope that more awareness of the issues…
It all started back in April, when Standard & Poor’s warned that its AAA credit rating for the U.S. would be at risk unless the U.S. government came up with a plan to reduce the national debt and the annual budget deficit. Last week, Moody’s Investors Service announced…
