September 2008

Today was an up day on Wall Street. After a day of untold carnage and pain in markets around the globe from Tokyo to London to New York and back again, we seem to have found a relief rally. There is still much work to be done, but enjoy…

It's not 777 points, but 485 points up will have to do for anyone who is not excited about a market crash. Financials were way up today despite the fact that Paulson's Economic Patriot Act was torpedoed by Congress. Let's savour the…

Everyone's dancing and cheering now that the bailout has been rejected. So, as Ice-T used to say, "Bust the cork on the Moët!" (image via Flickr).The market's up 500 points and all is well and swell. The guys over at Lombard Street Research…

The headlines about home prices are pretty dire, showing a record plunge in home prices of 16.3% over last year. In reality, it's not all doom and gloom. So, let's dig behind the headlines about the S&P/Case-Shiller Index released…

For me, the most important events of late have been the European banking sector meltdown. Just last week, German officials were lecturing the UK and the U.S. about their banking systems and now we see a number of European institutions…

Update: While the Irish were following the Swedish script, it became clear to me shortly after I wrote this that the bank debt guarantees were not a good idea. This post from Willem Buiter explains it best.  Along with American and…

Despite the fall in markets, Congress's not having passed the Economic Patriot Act may be a blessing in disguise. The FTSE is trading up. Dow futures show a rise of 170 points. So, maybe the sell-off was a one-day event. In any event, it…

UPDATE 6:15 PM ET: The Dow ended down 777 points for it's largest one day loss ever. The S&P and Nasdaq were both off 9%. The futures market show even greater losses are expected tomorrow.A brutal day in the markets was made that much…

The price tag was less than one would have liked, but these are desperate times for sellers of financial assets. Lehman Brothers secured a sale of its crown jewel investment management division for $2.15 billion in a sale to private equity…

The Financial Times caught up with two great economic pundits in Jim Grant and Stephen Roach. Below are links to six video interviews by the FT with these two gentlemen (three each). They should be enlightening regarding the global credit…