You may or may not be a David Bowie fan, but either way, you’ll probably be surprised by his contribution to finance. In 1997, David Bowie was a wealthy man, but didn’t have enough cash to buy out the other 50 percent co-owner of the songs that he had written. He was buddies with an investment banker who proposed a novel idea: sell bonds using his song library as collateral… Read More
The headlines have been filled with major macroeconomic news from China and elsewhere that have pushed stock prices lower. It’s perfectly legitimate to factor this news into stock prices because our collective fortunes are tied together whether we like it or not. If Chinese gross domestic product falls substantially, you can be sure that ours will drop as well along with growth prospects for US companies. Last night, earnings season… Read More
ALM Insights is focused on banks and other institutions that use their portfolio to manage risk on both sides of their balance sheet. It takes an in-depth look at securities investment strategies, balance sheet and asset/liability strategies, regulatory topics and general economic information. To view this issue, click the image below. In This Issue: We Have Liftoff! But I Thought Rates Went Up? Is The Canary Still Singing?
Last April, I wrote that the Chinese stock market was red hot and that I didn’t watch China closely enough to say whether it was in a bubble, but it was an expensive market (click here for the article). By the end of summer, it was pretty clear that there was a bubble and that it was bursting (click here for the article), as we can see in the chart… Read More
One of the puzzling aspects of yesterday’s trading was that oil prices fell. When I read about the malaise between Saudi Arabia and Iran over the weekend, I assumed that oil prices would gap higher yesterday morning. Violence in the Middle East has always meant threats to output, which meant potentially lower supply or other disruptions that resulted in higher prices. In this case, though, the geopolitical tension between these… Read More
For me, reading the Wall Street Journal is a bit like eating, drinking and sleeping – I can’t really go without any of these things for very long. I think that their reporting is fair and accurate and definitely of interest to me. So, I was a bit annoyed when the Friday headlines read ‘US stocks Post Worst Annual Losses Since 2008.’ Now that headline is accurate – last year… Read More
