Insights

Over the weekend it was announced that Spain would receive a bailout of up to $120 bilion to shore up its banks that are smarting from a real estate downturn and a poor economy. Asia loved it, European stock traders loved it for a few hours and US investors loved it...

I have posted the June newsletter titled Europe at the Crossroads. Look at theotop of the page for the Newsletters tab. As usual, the title only covers the main subject and I have numerous updates in the newsletter.

Today's emergency meeting of the G-7 came up with no significant announcement. Click to enlarge. Here is a chart from the Wall St. Journal online site showing the two-speed Europe. Art Cashin, one of my favorite commenters reminded viewers on CNBC today that Margaret...

Stocks have sold off pretty hard since their peak on May 1 and are down roughly 10% on the major indexes. Interestingly, small stocks and Nasdaq stocks, normally a good bit more volatile have not lost significantly more than large stocks. The Stoxx 50 European index...

One of the bright spots in this economic turmoil is how much it has lowered interest rates. If you have not refinanced your mortgage lately you should take a look. Current 15 year mortgage rate average - 2.75% Current 30 year mortgage rate average - 3.75% These rates...

Not a good day for stocks. Europe is down 1.2% - 3.0% today and the US dropped 1.5% when it opened in New York. The jobs report was just terrible. Only 69,000 new jobs were created last month. It takes nearly 100,000 new jobs just to absorb immigration, people turning...

I had incorrectly written earlier today that European banks that had bought sovereign debt in their country, due in large part to the carrot and stick incentives of the European Central Bank (ECB) as well as politicans in their country and which are now seeing the...

We had a fair amount of US economic news today, all of it confirming a slight slowdown in the economy. The estimate of 1Q/2012 GDP growth was revised down from 2.1% to 1.9% First time claims for unemployment rose slightly, the 7th time in the last 8 weeks The estimate...

The NY Times today put the total cost of bailing out Spanish banks at a total of $620 billion over several years. The bailout fund (European Stability Mechanism) which is scheduled to start up this summer has $867 billion in it. So, a bank bailout is do-able but of...

Greece is in really serious trouble. With elections just 18 days away the anti-austerity party and the pro-austerity party are neck and neck in the polls. Without austerity measures the Germans have said there will be no more bailout money. The German stance is...