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Why aren’t more municipal bonds being downgraded by the ratings agencies Fitch, Moody’s and S&P?  If you look at sovereign debt in revenue-constrained countries like Greece, Portugal or Ireland, the ratings agencies are issuing warnings. 
But, states and municipalities are suffering from the same revenue constraints. Tax revenues have plunged. Governments have shut down services [...]

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Christopher Wood, the well-noted market strategist at CLSA and writer of the classic Japan crash warning book “The Bubble Economy,” is now warning of a market correction in the West.  According to CNBC India, Wood believes that the markets’ extreme upward move is increasing the chances of a major correction.
Wood is still cautious. He says [...]

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This is the second straight month that the RBA has raised interest rates. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
The Reserve Bank has lifted its key interest rate for a second month in a row as it attempts to keep Australia’s economy on track for sustained growth.
Today’s widely tipped 25-basis-point increase raises the central bank’s cash rate [...]

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Here’s another bullet point in our ongoing tally of reflation indicators. It’s the return of risk in the form of start-up hedge funds (John Meriwether included).
From the FT:
Hedge fund launches are growing in size and number after months of subdued activity in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year.
The revival of fund [...]

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Yesterday, Moody’s cut the outlook for the sovereign debt of Portugal and put Greece on negative watch for a downgrade, signaling growing concern over spiraling debts. Just as with Spain and Ireland which I discussed yesterday, Portugal and Greece are smaller countries within the Eurozone with large fiscal problems due to the recession. For example, [...]

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This is a guest post from our newest contributor, Charles D. Bull.
Greetings Writedowners,
Ed has gone to bed already. This is Charles D. Bull speaking.
You know, my wife told me yesterday that the local shopping area already has the Christmas tree up and is all geared up to drum up holiday season sales.  Shoppers were [...]

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This comes via the FT:
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers to abandon the benchmark and threatens the [...]

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Jeremy Grantham is out with his much anticipated Quarterly Letter and it’s a good one. “Just Deserts and Markets Being Silly Again” is a cutting, snarling, and sarcastic rejection of the prevailing V-shaped recovery bull market view.  But Grantham is far from ultra-bearish, giving a more nuanced and realistic assessment for the medium and longer-term.
He [...]

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I used to be a European High Yield guy. I was there when the market first took off in the late 1990s on the back of telecom plays like NTL or Telewest. I was also there when the Russian devaluation and default shut down the market. And I remember how the market tanked when the [...]

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Richard Bernstein has done a huge reversal in the last few months from touting low-risk stocks to high-beta ones. He has gone from a preference for consumer staples to one for consumer cyclicals (XLY). And he has gone from lugubrious doubter of a sustainable recovery to an almost V-shaped optimism. 
What is remarkable about the [...]