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The housing market news was been dismal last week. It has occupied my attention with two articles (here and here) plus an Instablog. Last week, David Rosenberg, Chief Economist for Canada's Gluskin Sheff, posted an interesting discussion, with the following two graphs:

During the first two months of the new year 2010, the global financial markets has seen a number of positive and negative news headlines sending most of the domestic and international broader stock market indices to a roller coaster ride. Although there were a number of positive economic indicators in the US signaling a recovery, for instance the

Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? Can having an existence in a land of abundance actually have a down side? In economic terms, the answer to both questions is yes. The efficiency of an economy is related to the way it uses its capacity to produce. When there is an over abundance of capacity (called excess capacity), the implication

For the most part, ETFs are pretty similar regardless of which issuer is behind the fund. But as many investors know, there one notable exception to this rule. The HOLDRS products from Merrill Lynch are similar to traditional ETFs in many ways, but also feature some nuances that make them very different in others. HOLDRS stands for Holding Compan

The number of unemployed for more than 26 weeks is a data point published by the DOL (U.S. Dept. of Labor). However, this number is far short of the actual long term lost labor impact in the economy. This discussion starts with the DOL reported number and will expand from there.

If you're a parent, you can probably recall the moment your child was born. You probably remember the anticipation you felt while you waited for them to arrive and the emotions you were overcome with; emotions you probably never felt before in such capacity. In that moment you're ready to care for your new baby and devote your life to them, no matt

At the height of the leveraged ETF controversy in recent years has been the performance of these products when held for extended periods of time. Because leveraged ETFs operate with a daily investment objective, their returns over any period longer than a single trading session depends not only on the change in the related index, but on the path ta

The broader market indices had a bumpy ride and closed positive for the month of February 2010 as a result of mixed signs of economic recovery in US and the debt crisis in Greece. The rally was mostly led by NASDAQ gaining over 3 percent for the month. After hitting the 13 month high in November 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has remained

A recent survey released by InvestmentNews highlighted the ten ETFs financial advisors researched the most, based on data provided by Morningstar. It’s tough to know exactly what to make of the list, but at the very least it gives some interesting insights into the minds of investors. The list included many of the usual suspects: the S&P 500 (SPY),

In the previous three articles in this series (click here for part 2) the definitions of recession and depression have been discussed based on the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Analysis) definition of recession and a modified definition of the business cycle. The previous articles have had an analysis of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) that explic

In our opinion, investors are looking for a way out of European currencies and into the Canadian, Australian, and even the U.S. currency. This is why European money continues to flow into these sectors.

What we dont know will hurt us, and quite possibly on a more devastating scale than any Qaeda attack.The quote is from a penetrating indictment of the state of the financial world, written by Frank Rich yesterday in The New York Times. The danger that Rich refers to as greater than Al Qaeda is our financial system. This Op Ed is as good

Since the most recent global recession began (and the subsequent stimulus measures took effect), many of the relationships between asset classes that have historically guided investment decisions have weakened considerably. The correlation between U.S. equity and bond markets has gone through the roof, an indication of an increasingly liquidity-dri

Taken together, the Icelandic and Greek financial crises can be seen as the second stage of the larger global banking crisis. The first stage of the global banking crisis, which began in late 2007, was centered in the European and U.S. mortgage and mortgage derivative market. The second stage began with Iceland’s monetary and fiscal crisis in 200

Barry Rotholtz at The Big Picture has a great find today, a McClatchy article by Greg Gordon, published December 30. From the Gordon article:

As reported at Shocked Investor, Ernst &Young have published a list of the top 100 companies in the world, ranked by market capitalization. In 2009, 18 of the 100 came from emerging markets in 2009, up from 11 in 2008.

To this point in 2010, investors around the globe have paid close attention to every development in the euro zone, as crumbling public finances in the region have threatened to spark a wave of crippling defaults and have called into question the sustainability of the common currency. Most of the attention has focused on Greece, where a skyrocketing

“Inflation can be pursued only so long as the public still does not believe it will continue. Once the people generally realize that the inflation will be continued on and on and that the value of the monetary unit will decline more and more, then the fate of the money is sealed. Only the belief, that the inflation will come to a stop, maintains th

Many investors point to the rise of the ETF industry as a clear shift in preferences away from relatively expensive active management in favor of low-cost indexing. It's been said that the alpha hunters have evolved into beta grazers. But the benefits of the ETF structure aren't reserved solely for passive cap-weighted products, and the last f

Michael Ziegler, at photovoltaik-guide.de, reports that Duke Energy (DUK) has acquired the Blue Wing Solar Project from juwi solar Inc., based in Boulder, CO. The Blue Wing project is situated in San Antonio, TX and all output will be sold to San Antonio-based CPS Energy. CPS is one of the largest municipality-owned utilities in the U.S.. First Sol