September 19, 2008
So you think the Dow had a great day today, the best in ages? The headlines agree with you, with banners everywhere trumpeting huge gains. But to one way of thinking they're wrong, at least when you get outside the...
I agree almost entirely with Roger here. While I applaud the idea of the U.S. becoming less ad hoc in its re-engineering of the borked U.S. financial system, we have gone too far in some screwy directions in the current...
Since policymakers are decrying Wall Street as newly being a casino -- haven't they been paying attention? it's been a casino for, oh ... a century or so -- I'm leaving, appropriately enough, for Las Vegas. I'll be speaking there...
From an email I was forwarded today, if you took this week off you missed much less than you think. Like almost nothing at all. **9-12-08 CLOSE** **9-19-08 AFT** S&P 1252 1251 DOW 11422 11391 2YR 2.21% 2.13% 10...
Here is the word cloud of Treasury Secretary Paulson's speech this morning, and it is followed by the cloud for President Bush's speech. Some interesting differences in emphasis. President Bush: [via Wordle]...
I'm on CNBC's Power Lunch today at 1pm EST. Not sure what we'll talk about, as it's a fairly quiet day out there....
A bizarre and (frankly) mischievous claim is making the rounds that perhaps terrorists are behind the wave of stock shorting that has caused so many financial stocks to be taken hors pistes. I'm somewhere on the other side of...
Quite a day on the markets now that there are no evildoers around. Check the market map, which shows that things have settled a little from early euphoria, and there is some selling in consumer staples names, plus in Microsoft...
After radio silence throughout most of this financial crisis, President Bush (you remember him, right?) spoke today -- and he did better than I expected. I thought he was direct, calm, and relatively on-message. I'll post a full transcript...
Great. Now Nick Leeson, who famously brought down a bank himself through the use of derivatives, is scolding us. I love, in particular, how he ties the credit crisis to being offered five credit cards after taking down Barings Bank....
I've been scanning the SEC's just-released rule banning shorting of financial stocks. According to the SEC, a staggering 779 stocks are covered by the order, which goes into effect immediately. The SIC codes covered are 6000, 6011, 6020-22, 6025, 6030,...
DUDE: Rug pee-ers did not do this. -- The Big Lebowski (1998) Prominent in the vast and ever-growing bestiary of people being blamed for the ongoing financial crisis are the credit rating agencies. It is their ongoing downgrades...
