» bruce krasting

A friend sends me the following chart to support his conclusion that another round of QE is coming from the Fed sometime in June. The chart tracks the ten-year bond and the performance of the S&P since 2009. Some thoughts on the info provided in this graph: +While both QE1 & 2 were ending, ...

On Monday and Tuesday the market’s attention will be on the USA and the negative economic implications of the Nonfarm payroll (NFP) miss. Market eyes will also be focused on the bond markets in Italy and Spain. As of last Thursday, Europe seemed to be on the verge of another “accident.” The EU...

Ben Bernanke has said many times that Marriner Eccles, the head of the Federal Reserve in 1936/37 made a mistake by tightening credit (raising reserve requirements). Bernanke blames Eccles’s actions for the 50% stock market collapse in 1937 and the second leg of the depression that followed.Berna...

An interesting article in the Swiss press this morning regarding the big Swiss drug companies, Roche and Novartis. Apparently the PIGS are not paying their drug bills. The numbers are big. The bills have been unpaid for years. Some excerpts from the article: Hospitals in Portugal, Italy, Greece a...

Bernanke’s testimony to the House last week and to the Senate yesterday held no surprises. Ben has promised to maintain monetary policy at DEFCON 4 levels for as far into the future as we can see. The prepared remarks were identical for both presentations. I reviewed Bernanke’s 10/4/2011 tes...

Significant economic and political changes will make 2012 a historical year. The globe has experienced relative calm for the past 24 months. That stability won’t last much longer. Events that are not on anyone’s radar screen will matter the most. The following are the things that I think...

I got a laugh at this article by Jon Hilsenrath at the Wall Street Journal. (Link) This is another in a string of articles by Jon where Bernanke is clearly providing a portion of the content. The thrust of this one is that the Fed is going to change its communication policy in the upcoming Fed meet...

There are some folks in America who will wake up this morning and read that Jefferies has been sued for its role in a bond deal with MF Global and they will vote with their feet (Zero hedgeLink). They will close their accounts with JEF and move to a safer address. That’s an example of capital flig...

The Federal Reserve has taken an unusual step this week. To my knowledge the action is without precedent. There was no prior announcement or discussion preceding the new measures. By itself, this is atypical for Bernanke’s Fed. Ben doesn’t like to surprise markets. He did this time (I’...

I’m not surprised that the halo effect of political changes in Italy and Greece had a very short half-life. Why would it? Nothing has changed. I’m not surprised that the contagion has worked its way to France. After all, the ECB intervention policy insures that France becomes a target. “If you...

Lots of things tugging on the price of gold today. For me, the most important factor was the threat of another devaluation of the Swiss Franc. The headlines from the Swiss papers: . . The last time we had headlines like this the EURCHF was 1.05. Not long after it was 1.21. So it’s not surprisin...

The much-touted G20 meeting was a dud. As near as I can tell, nothing was accomplished. There was some movement to enlarge the IMF. I think this is a clear sign that the deciders at Cannes have come to realize that their own central banks are not up to the tasks at hand. The thinking is that the IMF...