by Constantin Gurdgiev, TrueEconomics.Blogspot.in

I have written before about the prospect of the Fed starting unwinding of the QE operations. Here's my summary forward view.

Stage 1: the Fed will reduce the rate of QE print ('taper on'). This is inevitable and it is already driving 10-year Treasury yields up - in last 40 days, by some 50bps. The same is also inevitable for the Euro area, albeit via a different mechanism (unwinding of excess liquidity supply to the banks, plus scaling down of any expectations for OMT to kick in), driving the Bund up some 35bps.

Read more >>

Closing Market Commentary For 06-19-2013

Gary is at a meeting out of the office this afternoon. The market close report is presented with the help of our syndication partner Investing.com. U.S. stocks had lackluster trading until the Fed released FOMC minutes and Chairman Ben Bernanke held a press conference. The market headed south from there.

At the close of U.S. trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 1.35%, the S&P 500 index ended down 1.39%, while the Nasdaq Composite index fell 1.12%.

Read more >>

Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today's list.

The top of today's reading list asks what has Edward Snowden revealed that was not already known ........ and the last article is about the record number of second quarter profit warnings from Wall Street.

Read more >>

Econintersect: The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) - the board of directors of the Federal Reserve - meeting concluded today and issued their meeting statement and subsequent Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's press conference was little changed from the previous except for lowering the growth forecast for 2013 marginally, lowering its inflation outlook, and acknowledging reduced economic risk:

The Committee sees the downside risks to the outlook for the economy and the labor market as having diminished since the fall.

Read more >>

Opening Market Commentary For 06-19-2013

Premarkets were flat and difficult to tell where Mr. market was going to go this morning at the opening. Even when the markets did open it appeared the 'dippers' jumped in as the green volume made a decent jump, but the averages didn't seem to move one way or the other. This could be seen as an important insight to the market weakness or maybe investors are waiting for the FOMC meeting today. For that we will know soon enough.

By 10 am the markets continued to be flat and lackluster while we wait for Dr. Ben.

Read more >>

The Nonfinancial leverage subindex of the National Financial Conditions Index increased slightly (less good) this week but still remains well in economic expansion territory. Econintersect focuses on non-financial tools to monitor the economy.

This index remains on a "less good" trend line, and is believed to be a good forward indicator a recession is coming. A value above zero is a recession warning.

Read more >>

The New York Times Headlines claimed Immigration Law Changes Seen Cutting Billions From Deficit.

Congressional budget analysts, providing a positive economic assessment of proposed immigration law changes, said Tuesday that legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration system would cut close to $1 trillion from the federal deficit over the next two decades and lead to more than 10 million new legal residents in the country.

Then tossed in a quote from one of the bill's backers:

The report was immediately seized on by backers of the bill as a significant boost to its prospects. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, one of the bill's authors, said the report 'debunks the idea that immigration reform is anything other than a boon to our economy.'

Read more >>

by Dirk Ehnts, Econoblog101

I was going through Taleb's book on anti-fragility last weekend, noting that he doesn't understand money/sovereign debt. His main idea that there are things which benefit from volatility is interesting. However, the way he writes about sovereign debt implies that he does not understand it. Since I have only been reading the German version I will have to translate the quote. Page numbers will be those of the German version as well. Let us start with the table on p. 52. Sovereign debt is listed as fragile, unsecured private debts as robust, and convertible bonds as antifragile. That is not how things played out in the crisis. Except for those countries using foreign currencies (like euro zone countries), sovereign bonds did exceptionally well:

Read more >>

Econintersect: Japan reported that exports increased to Yen5.77 trillion ($60.5 billion) in May 2013, up 10.1% compared to May 2012. This was the biggest gain in more than three years. The increase was virtually all due to a weaker yen - export volumes actually decreased by 4.8%. This was the 12th consecutive month with declining export volume. Imports also increased in May resulting in a trade deficit for the 11th straight month.

Read more >>

Econintersect: There is another black eye for independent accountancy. The Department of Financial Services (DFS) for New York State has extracted an agreement for a one year suspension from business with New York banks and a $10 million fine for Deloite's advisory practices at Standard Chartered. The suspension applies only to Deloite's consulting business and not to it's auditing operations, which are in a separate branch of the company.

Read more >>

Econintersect had an Infographic of the Day Sunday to honor Father's Day. But we had a second great infographic about Dads available and we are posting that now as a bonus.

Click Read more >> to view infographic.

Read more >>

Investing.com Technical Analysis (as of Tue, 18 June 2013 05:00pm EDT)

by Investing.com Staff, Investing.com

Below, technical overviews and analysis for key stock indices, commodities and currency pairs, based on market activity at the end of the 18 June 2013 U.S. session. This information is a comprehensive summary derived from simple and exponential moving averages along with key technical indicators shown for specific time intervals.

Read more >>

[Note: This is testimony by Jeffrey Kling, Associate Director for Economic Analysis (Congressional Budget Office), before the Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives.]

The federal government devotes roughly one-sixth of its spending to 10 major means-tested programs and tax credits, which provide cash payments or assistance in obtaining health care, food, housing, or education to people with relatively low income or few assets. Those programs and credits consist of the following:

• Medicaid,
• The low-income subsidy for Part D of Medicare (the part of Medicare that provides prescription drug benefits),
• The refundable portion of the earned income tax credit (EITC),
• The refundable portion of the child tax credit,

Read more >>

Written by Steven Hansen

• Economically intuitive imports are growing month-over-month, year-over-year, and year-to-date);
• exports were slightly worse month-over-month, and continues to contract year-to-date.

Written by Mitchell Clark, Profit Confidential

In the effervescent realm of books on business, there are the biographies on industry titans, the how-to's, the books on leadership (or lack thereof), the postulations on the next cycle, or books about "the secret" (the perpetual media premise about visualizing your success).

But there are very few good books about tradingcapital markets. Two excellent works regarding capital markets that feature highly successful traders / investors areMarket Wizards andThe New Market Wizards, both written by Jack D. Schwager. These two books may be older titles, but they are still required reading for any serious trader / investor.

Schwager chose an interview format for his books, asking specific and learned questions to very successful traders that made it big from capital markets.

Read more >>

Econintersect: The European Commission has officially approved the admission of Latvia to join the Eurozone group which shares the common euro currency. The ECB (European Central Bank) had approved the move on 05 June 2013. The remaining steps are considered to be pro forma: approval by EU finance ministers and the European Parliament. These could come as early as July and membership will become official 01 January 2014. There will be essentially no change to business for Latvia because the local currency (the lat) has been pegged to the euro for ten years.

Read more >>

Written by Hilary Barnes

France's President, Francois Hollande, is probably a man who thinks clearly, but as a wise politician he is careful not to let people know too clearly just what he thinks. Perhaps a man after the heart of the character in a novel by Benjamin Disraeli, who was asked which party he supported:

"The party of all wise men."

"And which party is that?"

"Wise men never tell."

Read more >>

by Felix Richter, Statista.com

After the G8 summit draws to a close, U.S. President Barack Obama will touch down in Berlin later today. To mark the occasion, we asked 500 Germans to choose their favorite U.S. president. The majority, 37.3 percent, chose Obama. John F. Kennedy came second (36.9 percent) while Bill Clinton came in third (13.7 percent).

Obama made a highly memorable visit to Berlin five years ago as a presidential candidate. Speaking at the city's Victory Column, he was hailed as a messiah by wildly enthusiastic crowds. In 2013, Obamania is long gone, replaced with the harsh reality of the highest unemployment rates in the history of the eurozone with no signs of recovery in sight.

Read more >>

Q&A by Nathan Rowader, Forward Markets

Investors have suffered with low yields, but profited from rising bond values during the 30-year bull market for bonds.

We believe the bond market is moving into a bearish phase, putting the value of existing bond holdings at risk.

Investors have been conditioned to believe that traditional bonds are safe and can deliver 5% annualized yields over the long term. In the current climate, neither may be true.

A variety of income-producing options are available for those who want to diversify bond portfolios and seek better yields.

Historical analysis shows that a diversified portfolio would have outperformed traditional bonds during the last bear bond market and in periods of rising interest rates.

Read more >>

Closing Market Commentary For 06-18-2013

Gary missed the market close report because of a Comcast internet service outage at his office. The market close report is presented with the help of our syndication partner Investing.com. U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday after the Federal Reserve kicked off a two-day monetary policy meeting, with many investors betting the U.S. central bank will keep stimulus measures in play in wake of soft inflation data.

At the close of U.S. trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.91%, the S&P 500 index ended up 0.78%, while the Nasdaq Composite index rose 0.87%.

Read more >>

Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today's list.

The top of today's reading list has Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz assessment of Japan's economic stimulus moves ........ and the last article maintains that Wall Street is winning the post-crisis regulation battle.

Read more >>