New York Times (Free subscription) | 07/17/2008
According to a Bloomberg report, investors rioted in Pakistan on Friday. The head of an organization of small investors is quoted as demanding the government freeze share prices so people can get out without losing more money. The authorities have tried. They banned short sales and they put in circuit breakers to limit daily declines to [...].
New York Times (Free subscription) | 07/09/2008
It is natural for a government official to look for signs things are getting better. So we should not be surprised that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson yesterday pointed to the few signs there are of improvement in the housing market. I've done my share of looking for signs of such improvement. At some point there has [...].
International Herald Tribune (Free subscription) | 06/12/2008
Lehman has given no admission of the obvious fact that it did not anticipate the market conditions that now bedevil it.
Abnormal Returns (Free subscription) | 07/23/2008
“Will Wall Street sober up?” after this most recent crisis. (Floyd Norris) “The concept of a crowded trade is simple. Trades are crowded when those that hold the assets in question have short time horizons.” (Aleph Blog) Want to buy a mutual fund operation? Banks are selling. (WSJ.com) “Since 1926 US stocks have beaten the world market in [...]
The Huffington Post (Free subscription) | 07/18/2008
On Tuesday, Countrywide's sex party house sold at auction for $475K, a substantial haircut from the $1.1 million Countrywide was in for. Keep in mind that as Floyd Norris pointed out last month, that doesn't include any losses from second mortgages. Real Estate Disposition Corp handled the auction on Tuesday and will collect a 5% buyers fee for their efforts, bringing the total price...
Footnoted.org (Free subscription) | 07/17/2008
On Tuesday, Countrywide’s sex party house sold at auction for $475K, a substantial haircut from the $1.1 million Countrywide was in for. Keep in mind that as Floyd Norris pointed out last month, that doesn’t include any losses from second mortgages. Real Estate Disposition Corp handled the auction on Tuesday and will collect a 5% buyers [...]
The Mess That Greenspan Made (Free subscription) | 07/16/2008
Is there any U.S. equivalent to the U.K.'s Ambrose Evans Pritchard? Nouriel Roubini is certainly more bearish, but he's an economist, not a writer for a major news organization. Floyd Norris perhaps? Somebody at MarketWatch, Barrons? Anyway, in his never ending quest to instill fear into the global economy and raise questions about the longevity of the late 20th century American financial...
Free Exchange (Free subscription) | 07/18/2008
... and some are demanding the government freeze share prices to protect against future losses. Floyd Norris blames America's housing crisis for what started the situation. It is more than a little odd that a crisis with roots in American home mortgage abuses has led to Pakistanis losing life savings. In some cases, the lost savings could not have financed one month’s payment on some...
The Big Picture (Free subscription) | 07/07/2008
Floyd Norris points out that in the annual cost of ownership equation, fuel prices are nearing the cost of the vehicles themselves! Historically, rapidly rising gasoline prices have hurt the auto industry, and that seems to be happening now. The carmakers have no trouble selling fuel-efficient vehicles, particularly hybrids that can run on electricity as well as gasoline. Until recently...
Footnoted.org (Free subscription) | 07/10/2008
... and considerably less than the $1.1 million that Countrywide appears to be on the hook for as Floyd Norris noted last month. Oddly enough, Countrywide’s own REO site still lists the house at $729K. Now obviously there’s a bit of danger of taking one particularly sorry house and using that as a metaphor for the crisis. But on a day when foreclosures jumped 53% and Fannie (FNM) and...
Bronte Capital (Free subscription) | 07/04/2008
Getting old is better than the alternative. But Floyd Norris suggests that it seems to be better for your investing . As I am getting older at the rate of one year per year Floyd's article should cheer me up. But it doesn't. An article that suggests that older investors are less likely to be caught up in a bubble has a causality problem at its heart. If you are likely to get caught...
Abnormal Returns (Free subscription) | 07/09/2008
... must eventually fall. But what is noteworthy is how slowly that process is proceeding.” ( Floyd Norris ) Blog links fall behind search engines and aggregators in driving site traffic. ( ValleyWag ) Walt Mossberg and David Pogue weigh in on the new iPhone . ( WSJ.com , NYTimes.com ) Do you want make sure you don’t miss any Abnormal Returns posts? Then feel free to add our fan-friendly...
Independent Sources (Free subscription) | 06/29/2008
Floyd Norris in the has an article in the New York Times Business Section entitled “The Beginning of the End for High Oil Prices” in which he speculates: Oil prices are up sharply (again) today. But stocks in oil companies are not. … It may be that the stock market is growing worried that high oil prices contain [...]
The Big Picture (Free subscription) | 06/26/2008
Long time readers know I am a fan of Barron's, and frequently reference the usually fine Econoday updates of daily economic data. But the NYT's Floyd Norris points to what can only be described as the single most absurd commentary on Sentiment data you will likely read in your lifetime. "Consumer confidence is unusually low, at its fifth all time worse reading in 40 years of Conference...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 06/26/2008
Barry Ritholtz submits: Long time readers know I am a fan of Barron's, and frequently reference the usually fine Econoday updates of daily economic data. But the NYT's Floyd Norris points to what can only be described as the single most absurd commentary on Sentiment data you will likely read in your lifetime: Consumer confidence is unusually low, at its fifth all time worse reading...
