At this stage in the financial crisis, it is difficult to discern exactly where things are headed. However, let me give a general road map of how I see things shaping up.
The credit crisis started in August 2007 as a result of the dual realization amongst investors and global financial institutions alike that large [...]

In July, I made my ten predictions for the markets and global economy for the rest of the year. Some of my predictions were pretty pedestrians, and some were fairly bold. Let’s take a look and see how I’m doing.
Here’s what I originally said:

Oil prices will dip below $100 before year-end. Let’s [...]

This morning Chris Whalen made some comments on CNBC that hit the nail on the head regarding the U.S. banking crisis: there is a huge wave of old-fashioned loan losses coming down the pike. The writedowns we have seen to date are largely confined to tradeable securities that must be marked to market.
There [...]

At the end of July, I wrote a post of my top ten predictions for the remainder of the year. A third of the way into things, my predictions are looking pretty good…so far. I said:

Oil prices will dip below $100 before year-end.
Inflation will fall globally.
The Fed will lower rates.
A major financial institution [...]

You have probably heard by now that Washington Mutual ousted its embattled CEO Kerry Kilinger and replaced him with former Sovereign Bancorp CFO Alan Fishman. But, what you have not heard is that WaMu has signed an agreement with the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) which requires WaMu to provide business plans and forecasts [...]

As you could probably tell — from all the stories I have been writing about the Baltics, Denmark, Sweden, you name it — I believe that Europe is the next leg down in the global housing bubble. As such, it will pay to focus as much attention on events outside the US, where the [...]

Late last month, I made a big to-do about the Baltics becoming the next Argentina. Well, part of that mess is unraveling as we speak. Estonia is in recession and Latvia is headed for recession.
Read my translation of a Dagens Nyheter article from Sweden. The Riksbank, Sweden’s Central Bank, has reason to worry about Swedish [...]

Clive Crook of the Financial Times rightly takes on the Bush Administration and its squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars of fiscal surplus on war in Iraq and ta cuts for the wealthy. In this time of economic crisis, the U.S. is severely limited in its potential fiscal response by the massive budget [...]

For those of you who actually care about anything international, there is an Emerging Markets crisis brewing right now in the Baltics. After reading posts from Alpha Sources, naked capitalism, Market Movers, and Bronte Capital on the subject, I started to think people actually cared about the tiny Baltics. So, let me add [...]

I fully anticipate this will happen, so the question becomes: what will the Fed do?
The FDIC stepped in at two banks over the weekend, 1st National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank. These banks failed as a result of construction loans in real estate bust regions of the US. No, surprise there. [...]