Following on the story of how aggressive cross selling requirements spurred employees to abuse customers and commit fraud at Wells Fargo, this week the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin...
Education is one of the best long-term investments we can make individually and as a society. But this is only true where education enriches the student. Where the business model is designed to prey on the trusting and gullible in order...
The high-frequency algos went wild blasting millions of buy orders at risk markets yesterday afternoon on headlines that OPEC members might agree in November to hold-production near recent all time highs.
The financial distortions that central banks have orchestrated grow more grotesque by the day. Financial risk in the world has rarely, if ever, been higher. We are far past the last bubble peak in 2007 in terms of over-leverage,
Still stinging from the blame and lawsuits directed its way in the 2008 crisis, S&P Global Ratings is trying to get out in front of the default tsunami now rising in corporate debt markets around the world. Already north of $50 trillion in 2015, corporate debt globally is expected...
In 1982, North America was grinding its way through a second ‘double-dip’ recession in two years. Financial markets were in year 16 of a secular bear market that had been pummeling prices and grinding stock valuations from historic highs (PE’s above 20) in 1966 to historic lows (PE’s under 10) by 1982.
Amid all the media hyperbole around record share buybacks the past few years, very few people seem to grasp the net effect. A new must read report “Are Buybacks an Oasis or a Mirage” lays out the math for those wanting to see.
At last the penny has dropped on the overwhelming case for electric engines worldwide. It’s unbelievable how long it has taken the mainstream to recognize this. See: Aston Martin seeks ‘beauty and soul’ in...
There is no question that lower prices are better for cash strapped consumers. The trouble is that lower prices are also hugely negative for a large part of the global economy (households, companies and countries)...
The people who are passionate about gold (most of whom make their money selling gold and financial products based on it to others) are not going gently into the night of 40% declines to date. They remain bound...
This morning oil is falling on news that an Iran deal will be worsening the supply glut as global demand (led by speculative implosions in China) heads even lower. The Canadian and Aussie dollars are back near...
Skyscrapers, windows, lap tops, phone screens, car windows, the world is full of solar panels waiting to be utilized. Free, clean energy everyday; ours for the taking. Mass scale solar is world changing. The most important...
The growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) is a key indicator of economic activity, but the official estimate is released with a delay and routinely revised in retrospect, quarters and years after the original ‘guesstimates’.
For all those who hated the advent of horseless buggies, cell phones, computers, the internet et al…don’t read this one! The primary motivation here is not to ‘save the world’, but rather for individuals to save cash flow and...
Another day, another central bank ‘shocks’ currency markets. Today it was the BOC’s turn, as Mr Poloz admitted Canada’s economy is tanking with the price of oil. Cutting the overnight rate by a token .25% to .75...
What the PHD club have forgotten or intentionally overlooked in all their learned theories, is the below chart. The bonanza of babies born after the Second World War in all the world’s most advanced, wealthiest economies...
We drove by a new high end shopping complex over the holidays that had been finished in 2011 with many of the well known brand names in house. The place looked very prosperous. Except that there were no visible people coming in or out.
The jabbertalk parsers have rarely been in finer form than following yesterday’s latest Federal Reserve comedy hour. It is truly incredible to hear the Yellen-syllable analysis now engulfing the stock...
Although metals, minerals, mining and energy companies had rebounded sharply from the 2009 lows, by 2011 they began falling again in a series of dramatic drops and rallies.
One of the most useful strategies for rebuilding financial strength and savings in households is the choice to avoid or pay down debt while renting and taking public transit...
