Jul 29, 2010, 12:43AM Recently, I had the pleasure of participating in a CES-ifo workshop on "The Evolving Role of China in the Global Economy," co-organized by Yin-Wong Cheung and Jakob de Haan. The conference agenda is here. The paper topics spanned issues ranging from...

Jul 29, 2010, 12:35PM Copper seems to be regaining some of its mojo. The industrial metal is up 0.9% Thursday and nicely above its 200-day moving average.

Jul 30, 2010, 3:01AM Theories of unemployed labor are a subset of theories of unemployed resources. The U.S. housing vacancy rate--an unemployment rate for homes--is at its highest level since at least 1965 (see figure). Why? Is it sticky prices? Lack of aggregate demand?...

Jul 29, 2010, 8:01AM ...According to Scientists in 48 Countries. Earth has been growing warmer for more than fifty years. Figure 1: Source: NOAA.The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same...

Jul 29, 2010, 8:26PM Seasoned semiconductor investors often get the willies when executives in this highly cyclical industry start talking about expanding their ability to churn out chips...

Jul 28, 2010, 10:05AM You know things are heating up when George Soros wants to invest, and in this case, it’s Asia’s oldest stock exchange.As the FT reports on Wednesday, Soros is in...

Jul 28, 2010, 8:40AM Alternate title: The end of valuation.And this is why.The following comes from Petromatrix’s Wednesday energy markets report:Daily Trading Volume for WTI on Monday...

Jul 29, 2010, 3:06PM Earlier in the week we looked at Lowry Research and found them to be continuing to be bullish based on their proprietary measures of demand and supply for equities. In fact, their Buying Power index has surpassed its April highs, indicating that there is ...

Jul 30, 2010, 3:00AM Earlier this month I shared a quote in the email newsletter that seems to have struck a strong cord with a few of you... "The ego is not your friend as a trader. The ego wants to be right, it...

Jul 29, 2010, 10:49PM Yes, MASSIVE. Knocks Martha Stewart, Galleon, etc into a cocked hat…The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged brothers Samuel E. Wyly and Charles J. Wyly, Jr....

Jul 29, 2010, 1:15PM The Inflation/Deflation debate seems to be constantly coming up — from clients, institutional accounts, and the media. Let’s look at a few points on this:Deflation is a fact. It is happening now, it is real, and we see it in the actual data.

Jul 28, 2010, 4:11PM Free exchange Debt R.A. | WASHINGTON When does debt drag down growth? Images: CARMEN REINHART and Kenneth Rogoff received widespread acclaim for their book "This Time ...

Jul 28, 2010, 1:30PM In Hollywood, a lot of people make a good living by making TV pilots that never end up on the air. (There's also a strong market for writing film scripts that are never turned into films.) According to Variety, roughly one-third of pilots end up on the...

Jul 28, 2010, 10:25AM Behold — the first ABS to be issued since the Dodd-Frank bill caused the market to paralyse, the securitisation markets to declare the end of the world, and the ratings agencies...

Jul 28, 2010, 10:42AM FT Alphaville has made the case about how increased correlations may be linked to ETFs before — albeit in our own inimitable and non-mathematical style.But here comes a very similar argument,...

Jul 27, 2010, 1:30PM Free exchange Corporate profits R.A. | WASHINGTON What's behind high corporate profits? TYLER COWEN has been asking bloggers to explain why, if a demand shortfall is the...

Jul 26, 2010, 4:06PM Free exchange Fiscal policy R.A. | WASHINGTON The best things come to those who believe RECOVERIES around the world are looking less certain than they did a few months...

Jul 24, 2010, 1:43AM Here is this week’s sentiment overview:Sentiment Surveys The Investors Intelligence survey, a measure of investment newsletter editors from ChartCraft is basically unchanged once more. This week we have an absolutely equal amount both bearish and bullish ...

Jul 26, 2010, 4:00PM I’ve read a number of articles on hedging tail risk of late.  Most of them were pretty good; I just want to add in my thoughts.For those who haven’t read the articles, tail risk is when even safe investments get hit hard.

Jul 27, 2010, 10:09PM So far this year, 142 stocks in the S&P 500 have increased their dividends while just one stock has lowered it. Last year at this time, 93 stocks had raised their dividends while 61 had lowered them.Ten stocks have initiated dividends compared with just...