Negative Interest Rates as “Black Hole Experiment” If somebody else thinks what you think, you can’t be crazy, right? Explanation #2: you’re both suffering from exactly the same malady. Either way, it’s reassuring to read famed investor Jeremy Grantham’s latest thoughts on today’s bizarro world of negative interest rates and inflated asset prices, courtesy of...Read More
Lehman’s “Not So Big” $600,000,000,000(!) Balance Sheet “The 2008 financial crisis itself was centered not on big banks but on “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers that weren’t necessarily that big.” –Paul Krugman, “Sanders Over the Edge”; The NYT (4/8/2016) No matter what you think of big banks or who caused The 2008 Crash, I think...Read More
Janet Yellen Playing Ben Bernanke’s Favorite Tune Maybe, someday Saved by zero I’ll be more together Stretched by fewer Thoughts that leave me Chasing after My dreams disown me Loaded with danger Maybe I’ll win Saved by Zero Holding onto Words that teach me I will conquer Space around me Maybe I’ll win Saved by...Read More
Did the Fed “Buy Itself a Landslide?” “Dear Jack: Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.” —JFK quoting a made-up telegram from his father, Joseph Kennedy, after he first won election to Congress. As far as I’m concerned — and I know a lot of...Read More
Explaining the Summer Swoon “Sell in May and go away.” –Investing maxim Selling in May sure seems to have been good advice this year: the Dow is down about 700 points (almost 5%) from its Spring high. The explanation? (or at least one of them): Wall Street’s “A” team departs for the Hampton’s in the...Read More
Investors, Savers Between a Rock & a Hard Place I have no idea where the stock market is headed from here (and neither does anyone else). But, in the event that it suffers a sharp break — possibly in connection with the playing out of central bank stimuli — I have no doubt what at...Read More
