June 2008

In an interview with CNBC India, international investor Marc Faber says that gold is his commodity of choice right now. Marc Faber sees demand for commodities to come off in second half of 2008 in India and China. He will rather buy gold…

It looks like AIG is poised to join the ranks of UBS, Citigroup, and Merrill in leading the write-offs by financial institutions. Bloomberg is reporting that AIG is ready to write off another $5 billion. June 27 (Bloomberg) -- American…

This is the latest M&A rumour making the rounds in financial circles. I caught this in Today's Financial News. And that may be the moment when National Australia Bank (NAB:Australia) makes a formal offer for the Australian branch…

Wow! I've heard of multi-year lows, but a 53-year low. That's painful. Look, let's not beat around the bush here. GM is in big trouble. They sell many products that people don't want anymore (gas guzzlers), their growth engine is…

Wow! That was an exciting, but stomach churning day in the markets. The Dow was way down, 358 points. Oil soared to a new high over $140 a barrel. The Euro hit a record against the yen. The TED spread is rising. Did I miss anything?…

At 8:30 EDT this morning, the Labor department released its jobless claims numbers. The numbers are not appreciably different than a week ago. But they are largely consistent with recession: 384,000 jobless claims and 3,139,000 continuing…

I caught a blog entry on naked capitalism that reminds me of the impending wave of lawsuits associated with the credit crunch. It seems that investment banks were peddling auction rate securities to retail investors while warning the…

UPDATE 26 SEP 2008: I have a new story on Fortis and its troubles. Please click here. The Times of London is reporting that Fortis, a Belgian-Dutch bank is issuing an 'urgent' cash call of €1.5 billion. Fortis has been hard hit by the…

In Ireland, the papers are very much focused on how to deal with the bust after the boom. In the wake of the big fat no on the Lisbon Treaty and after 15 long years of upswing, it is readily apparent to anyone that the bust is happening.…

This is yet another chart from Perot Charts. I intend to highlight a number of these charts in my coming 'chart of the day' series because they present a comprehensive picture of the challenges the U.S. Federal Government faces. Also,…