ShareI woke up this morning thinking about James Baker’s October 1987 comments on the dollar which many feel precipitated the 1987 crash. This was on my mind as I contemplated the implications of Obama’s recent regulatory announcement bombshell. The market has been jittery the last two days and the VIX is way up. So, 1987 [...]

ShareEmployees of US states and cities have much better pension plans than do Average Americans and this is creating some serious budgetary problems, one reason to be very careful in assessing municipal bonds, particularly general revenue ones.
A recent FT article puts some numbers on this problem:
The US public pension system faces a higher-than-expected shortfall of [...]

ShareSo, it’s that time of year again when people make their year-end predictions. I’ll be running my own and critiquing my performance from last year.  Here are former bear now bull Richard Bernstein’s ten predictions for 2010.  There is a clip at the bottom from CNBC as well.
Before you pillory Bernstein for going from David [...]

ShareJohn Mauldin believes we have just seen a pretty amazing trading rally aka cyclical bull/bear market rally. Stocks are more than 60% above March lows.  But many stocks are at “nosebleed” valuation levels and that makes him suspect this is not an opportune entry point for stock market investors.
He counsels utilities (like Bill Gross) or [...]

ShareBelow is another great article from John Mauldin via his weekly newsletter.
John Mauldin, Best-Selling author and recognized financial expert, is also editor of the free Thoughts From the Frontline that goes to over 1 million readers each week. For more information on John or his FREE weekly economic letter go to:http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/learnmore
From ghoulies and ghosties [...]

ShareMorgan Stanley’s piece on Treasuries Priced for Perfection…for Now! is pretty bearish. The basic gist is that while the ten-year represents fair value today, because inflation expectations have become unanchored, Morgan Stanley expects the yield to rise from 3.3% to 5.5%. That’s a disaster of 1994 proportions. Obviously, given some of my recent comments, this [...]

ShareI pick up Bill Gross where I left him on Friday.  He said in his monthly newsletter that the Fed is going to keep interest rates at zero percent through 2010. But, he is not willing to stick his neck out in a liquidity seeking return kind of way even though this is what reflation [...]

ShareHere’s another interesting piece from Randall Wray, the economics professor from University of Missouri-Kansas City (that same school which employs Bill Black of “The Best Way to Rob a bank is to own one” fame).
Wray has a lot to say most, but not all, of which I found convincing – but that’s a story for [...]

ShareBill Gross of Pimco spoke on Bloomberg with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt. He thinks the U.S. is entering a new normal of low nominal GDP growth. However, financial bets have been made on 6-7 percent nominal GDP (think pension liabilities).  Unless we get 5-6% nominal GDP growth debt deflation and deleveraging dynamics (the D-process)will [...]

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If you want to know what market momentum is all about, here you have it. Get in now to profit.
Sources
Bill Gross Calls High-Yield Corporate Debt `Overvalued’: Video (video here) – Bloomberg