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Chart of the day: US jobs recovered since crisis began by industry
Today we look at the jobs recovery by various industries
Japan’s fuel imports driving trade deficit to record
As predicted earlier this year, Japan continues to struggle with its energy needs. The chart below shows the recent trend in Japan’s imports of residual fuel oil. These fuel imports are quickly translating into a rising trade deficit
EU Restarts Talks With Hungary
We must stress that opening talks does not mean that a deal is going to be easy. In our view, Hungary did the bare minimum to get the EU back to the negotiating table, and that difficult negotiations remain ahead. On a separate but related note, Hungary still faces a decision by the EU on an Excessive Deficit Procedure. The government has sent a convergence plan to Brussels this week, which Hungary hopes will be enough to close the procedure. If not, then Hungary would likely lose some EU funds
Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein on Bloomberg Television
Bloomberg TV spoke to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein today in a much discussed interview. Below is the video and partial transcript of that interview. I provide it without comment
The Coming European Growth Pact
Recent events in Europe mark the beginning of the push back against German-led austerity, but it is even bigger as the IMF’s call for the ECB to cut rates illustrates
Chart of the day: year over year growth in Greek deposits of non-financial customers
The Greek private sector can generally only rely on the Greek banking system for credit. At the same time the Greek private sector is moving liquidity out of the country, dramatically shrinking the availability of credit
Bank of Canada: House price-to-income ratio outstrips norm by 35%
I have noted a number of times in the past that household debt levels in Canada have reached worrying levels. I am not the only one on to this. Canadian central bank head Mark Carney was in the news yesterday sounding the alarm on this as well. Mark Carney noted that Canadian household debt is being driven by a rise in house prices that has caused the house price/income ratio to now be 35% above the norm in Canada
Steve Keen: The Maastricht Treaty is a suicide pact for European leaders
Professor Steve Keen was on Tonight with Vincent Browne in Ireland last week, where the topic understandably was the European Union. The question for Steve was how the Maastricht Treaty fits his economic paradigm, which follows Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis. Below is a 10-minute clip from the show
Chart of the day: Life insurers won’t meet nominal return targets
JPMorgan recently performed a study on the composition of portfolios managed by life insurance companies. The study looked at the top 20 life insurance firms using their regulatory filings. These are the portfolios set up to support projected policy claims. The reason it is important to measure the composition and the changes in such portfolios is that life insurance firms manage $1.9 trillion in assets. Here is the current breakdown
Graphite: Time to Invest, or Flavor of the Day?
Graphite has been getting a lot of buzz recently, raising bullish expectations among some investors and even talk of a future bubble. Why? The price has risen steadily over the past couple of years and attracted a lot of attention. Let’s have a look at why some market participants are excited about this mineral and see if it’s worth our investment dollars
Argentina Fundamentals Still Deteriorating
A look at the fundamentals shows why Fernandez is engaging in such visible theatrics, which also includes recent vitriol regarding the Falkland Islands. Simply put, we think economic stresses are intensifying. How deep the stresses will get is yet to be determined
Judging by Ireland, Spanish banks to take a lot more credit writedowns
Ireland dealt fairly quickly with its property market bubble by effectively and forcefully nationalizing and recapitalizing its banking sector. They clearly still have a serious problem on their hands, but the nation has been aggressive in addressing the issue of distressed real estate loans. In contrast, Spain’s banking system is nowhere close to fully recognizing the full extent of the problem. Not facing the problem however is not going to make it go away