Home prices are still rising pretty much everywhere in the US, with California as usual leading the way. State-wide, the median CA home is now above $600,000, up 9% year over year. In San Francisco County, homebuyers are paying an average of 18% above the asking price, and price per square foot is now more […]
Failed States, Part 1: Hopeless European Millennials And The Populist Takeover
Europe is frequently held up as an example of how the rest of the world should behave on a variety of issues. But this comparison misses at least two things: First, “Europe” is actually a lot of different countries in a lot of different situations. Second, much of what seems to work over there only […]
Oil, The Petrodollar, And The Next Emerging Market Crisis
Oil prices are up over the past year, which is bad if you’re, say, a developing country that imports a lot of the stuff. But the US dollar (aka the petrodollar) is also up, which compounds the problem because oil is priced in dollars. So Brazil, for instance, finds itself buying an appreciating necessity that’s […]
Shocked! To Hear That Corporate Share Buybacks Line Execs’ Pockets
Here’s one for the Clueless Regulator Hall of Fame: Corporate executives are using stock buybacks to pad their own compensation, according to SEC official (CNBC) – Share buybacks have surged since the Republican-backed tax bill made it through Congress in December. Corporate executives are using tax cuts and share buybacks to boost their own compensation, […]
Inflation Is Back, Part 7: Just Check Out This Chart
Monthly economic readings tend to be full of noise and are therefore unreliable. So it’s best to save the excited assertions for established trends. The US Consumer Price Index appears to have reached that point: As most readers probably know, the CPI is widely believed to understate the true rate of inflation because of statistical […]
When Will Gold’s “Summer Doldrums” End? History Says Pretty Soon
This has been a uniquely boring stretch for gold and silver – especially considering all the things going on in the world that ought to light a fire under precious metals. In just the past few weeks, the US started a global trade war, Italy elected a populist government, emerging markets descended into yet another […]
“Junk In The Trunk” – Investors Get “Comfortable” With Subprime Auto Loan Bonds
The longer an expansion lasts, the crappier its paper becomes. That may seem like a baseless assertion, but it’s actually just simple math. Early in recoveries, borrowers and lenders are both shell-shocked by the last recession, so only high-quality deals get done. But as time passes, all the good borrowers get their loans and if […]
Inflation Is Back, Part 6: More People Now Expect Higher Prices
Turning points in a financial system usually occur in discrete phases. At first, new information that contradicts existing preconceptions is dismissed as unimportant. But as more such data accumulates, a growing number of people come to expect the new trend to continue. In economist-speak, “expectations” change, and these become self-fulfilling prophecies, as people start behaving […]
Late-Cycle Sadness: Value Investors Give Up And Buy Netflix, Apple
Back in the late 1990s I interviewed for an analyst job with a value-oriented money manager. My main impression of our talk was how sad the guy was. The tech bubble was in full swing, any little nothing company with even a tangential relationship to the Internet was soaring, and this poor guy’s cash-rich, super-safe […]
A Spiking Dollar = Emerging Market Chaos, Part 2: The Story In Four Charts
For most of the past few years, emerging market stocks and bonds were among the favorite investments of everyone from hedge funds to pension funds to retirees. Now, not so much. The next two charts (courtesy of Saturday’s Wall Street Journal) show the huge recent run ending in January, to be replaced by a full-on […]
Japan Shows Why — And How — All Fiat Currencies Are Doomed
A couple of decades ago, when the post-war baby boom generation was in its prime earning and tax-paying years, governments had a chance to guarantee the survival of their financial systems. But they blew it. Instead of controlling spending, running surpluses and banking the proceeds against the inevitable retirement of millions of boomers, most chose […]
Housing Bubble Pathologies Start to Bite – Yet Another Sign the Cycle Has Peaked
The early stages of a housing bubble are fun for pretty much everyone. Homeowners see their equity start to rise and feel smart for having bought, home seekers have to pay up, but not too much, and fully expect their new home to keep appreciating. People with modest incomes feel a bit of pinch but […]
A Spiking Dollar = Emerging Market Chaos
The dollar collapse thesis – which ends with all fiat currencies achieving their intrinsic value of zero — doesn’t preclude some thrills and chills along the way, in which some currencies fall faster than others and wreak havoc on various parts of the global economy. This might be one of those times, as instability in […]
The Next Populist Political Issue Emerges: CEO Pay
It’s always been understood that corporate executives make a lot more than rank-and-file workers. But the gap between top and bottom was hard to calculate, and therefore hard to turn into media sound bites, so it didn’t play much of a role in the US political process. But this year, for the first time, corporations […]
Debt Slaves, Part 1: Million Dollar Student Loans And The Coming Bailout
Today’s Wall Street Journal is profiling an orthodontist who has $1 million in student loans, is paying less than the interest that’s accruing, and because of this will owe $2 million in the not too distant future. The list of things that have to happen for a situation like this to evolve is long and […]
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