Congratulations San Antonio!

by Marilou Long on December 20, 2011 in Economic Indicators

San Antonio has just been named the Best Performing City in this year’s ranking by the Milken Institute. The 2011 Milken Institute Best-Performing Cities Index ranks U.S. metropolitan areas by how well they are creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth. The components include job, wage and salary, and technology growth. In most years, these [...]

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Could Mortgage Refi’s lead the way up?

by Laura Ehrenberg-Chesler on December 15, 2011 in Banks

The December 10th edition of Barrons included an article entitled “The Great American Refinancing”.  It put forth an idea that has been embraced by both liberals and conservatives.  The basic idea is that any homeowner who is current on their mortgage would have the ability to refinance their payments at the lowest rates available today.  That [...]

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German Bund Yield Back at Parity with 10 year Treasury

by Marilou Long on December 13, 2011 in Bonds

From Rick Santelli’s morning bond report:

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More Jobs headed to U.S. shores

by Laura Ehrenberg-Chesler on December 8, 2011 in Employment

On November 3rd I posted a blog about why more jobs may be headed back to the U.S. in the next decade.  On December 5th the Wall Street Journal published an article giving more credence to this notion, specifically as it pertains to the oil and gas industry, and how they are “shifting their focus away [...]

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S&P Puts the Eurozone on Creditwatch

by Marilou Long on December 6, 2011 in Banks

Yesterday’s rally faded when rumors started to surface that S&P was going to downgrade certain countries in the Eurozone.  The actual report came out after the close, and the rating agency put 15 out of the 17 Eurozone countries on negative creditwatch which means that they could be downgraded.  Greece and Switzerland were the two [...]

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Central Bank Action + Positive U.S. Economic Data

by Laura Ehrenberg-Chesler on December 2, 2011 in Credit Crisis

On Wednesday, The Fed and the ECB, along with other international banks bolstered swap lines, thereby increasing global liquidity and easing fears of a credit market shut down. Today, we got employment numbers that were at least as good as expected. And, the September number was revised upward. The Europeans have bought themselves some time, the same way [...]

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Italy Can’t Catch a Break

by Marilou Long on November 29, 2011 in Credit Crisis

Italy had a bond auction today, and once again the yields went up.  The three year sold at 7.89%, and the ten year note sold at 7.56%.  I have embedded an interesting article below that talks about the difference in borrowing costs for countries that issue debt in their own currency versus those that don’t.

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The Super Committee Punts and Leaves the Field

by Marilou Long on November 22, 2011 in Credit Crisis

This Wall Street Journal article titled “Debt Panel Folds its Tent” is a good summary of the failure of Congress to come to any agreement on the best way to reduce the deficit.  Their title is probably a better metaphor than mine for this post given the tent cities coming down in the various Occupy protests. From the [...]

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Resilient Retail Sales vs High Unemployment?

by Laura Ehrenberg-Chesler on November 17, 2011 in Economic Indicators

On Wednesday, October retail sales figures were released.  They hit an all time high, up 7.2% for October.  This begs the question: How can retail sales be so good, while unemployment remains north of 9%? On his blog post this morning economist Ed Yardeni offers one potential explanation…Unemployment Benefits.  He contends that ending support payments for [...]

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U.S. Data Shows Strength

by Marilou Long on November 15, 2011 in Economic Indicators

While Europe continues to struggle, we keep seeing decent economic activity in the U.S.  Here is an analysis of this morning’s retail sales and PPI numbers.

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