This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Michael Lerner and Ethan Hill (GOOD.is): The new Nostradamus, October 1, 2009. Can a fringe branch of mathematics forecast the future? A special adviser to the CIA, Fortune 500 companies, and the US Department of Defense certainly thinks so.

• Paul Lim (The New York Times): 10 years later, a much less expensive Dow 10,000, November 14, 2009. Investors may take some comfort now that the Dow Jones industrial average is back above 10,000 after slipping to around 9,700 at the end of October. But the return to 10,000 also serves as a bitter reminder that stocks have gone virtually nowhere, on balance, for more than a decade. Look a bit

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This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Jennifer Hughes (Financial Times): Visibility improved but storms may lie ahead, November 13, 2008. The fog is beginning to lift. All year executives, analysts and investors have talked of a “lack of visibility” on the outlook for the economy, earnings and financial markets. By “visibility” they are in essence complaining about the uncertainty that clouds all forecasts all the time, but which we had increasingly managed to ignore during such a steady run of good times. Investors are becoming more confident that the fog is lifting, but that does not necessarily mean there is sunshine waiting just behind it.

• Doug Kass (TheStreet.com): Market ignorance is bliss, November 12, 2009. I do believe with some certainty that the market’s vulnerability

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The inflation/deflation debate is hot… It crackles and pops like a pine fire. But it gives off little helpful light. Abe Lincoln may have read by the light of an open fire. But when we tried it, we singed our eyebrows. It made us suspicious of Old Abe; maybe he wasn’t quite as truthful as he pretended to be. Later, we realized he was a mountebank. But that’s another story…

Today, we light a candle and try to interpret the shadows on the wall…

Yesterday, the Dow fell 81 points. Gold dropped $5 to $1009.

Will the feds succeed in causing inflation? Or will they fail? Will the dollar continue to go down? Or will it prove to be a safe haven currency in a time of deflationary trouble?

According to the papers, the feds have already done it. “Fed says recovery underway,” says a headline from yesterday’s press.

Another headline tells us that

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The dollar will probably go up. Still, we’d stay away…

Here is Warren Buffett’s view:

“Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.

“They made mistakes, of course. How could it have been otherwise when supposedly indestructible pillars of our economic structure were tumbling all around them? A meltdown, though, was avoided, with a gusher of federal money playing an essential role in the rescue.

“The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery.”

This is probably the view shared by most economists and most investors. It is not our view. From where we sit there is no recovery underway…and there

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A weak durable goods order report and a slide in commodity prices sent indices to a second consecutive day of light losses as stocks appeared vulnerable to a pullback in the absence of reassuring economic signs.  A search and advertising deal between Microsoft and Yahoo also received a cold response from investors even as the Federal Reserve contended that the severity of recession is easing in most parts of the country.  Also driving the markets lower were shares of oil and gas producers and basic material manufacturers as oil prices declined for another day.  Crude prices plunged $3.88 to $63.35 a barrel after the Energy Department reported a sharper-than-expected build in weekly crude inventories.  

On Tuesday, stocks had declined after a weaker-than-anticipated consumer confidence report and a lackadaisical response to the auction of 2-year notes drew investors to the selling table.  The trend continued Wednesday and treasuries moved lower

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In the currency market, the dollar was marginally lower against the euro. Late Monday, the euro was trading at $1.4078 vs. $1.4068 on Friday.

“The U.S. dollar has started the week a touch firmer, with renewed concerns over the global recovery helping the greenback ahead of a busy week” of economic data, wrote strategists at Brown Brothers Harriman.

With the July 4th weekend ahead, the Labor Department will release the closely-watched tally of non-farm payroll losses a day early, on Thursday. Economists are projecting a net loss of about 325,000 jobs in June. Any strong variance from that figure is likely to have repercussions.

But if there are further indications that the ‘green shoots’ scenario is correct, will that necessarily have a positive effect on the buck? Many doubt it, even though a strengthening economy should portend a stronger greenback.

However, “The past seven years have proven each time U.S. data emerged on

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In the currency market, the dollar lost some more ground to the euro. Late Friday, the euro was trading at $1.4068 vs. $1.3991 on Thursday.

China took center stage as Marketwatch.com reported that “the People’s Bank of China’s annual financial stability report repeated an earlier call by central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan for the development of a new super-sovereign currency that would largely take the place of the dollar…

“The Chinese central bank’s comments come after Chinese government officials had played down concerns over the dollar’s reserve-currency role following a visit to China by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner earlier this month.

“ ‘There may be signs here of tensions mounting between the PBOC’s economic concerns over China’s holdings of dollars and the Chinese government’s diplomatic reasons’ for toning down their criticism, said Stephen Gallo, head of market analysis at Schneider Foreign Exchange.

“The central bank is ‘still clearly worried about the

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In the currency market, the dollar lost some more ground to the euro. Late Friday, the euro was trading at $1.4068 vs. $1.3991 on Thursday.

China took center stage as Marketwatch.com reported that “the People’s Bank of China’s annual financial stability report repeated an earlier call by central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan for the development of a new super-sovereign currency that would largely take the place of the dollar…

“The Chinese central bank’s comments come after Chinese government officials had played down concerns over the dollar’s reserve-currency role following a visit to China by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner earlier this month.

“ ‘There may be signs here of tensions mounting between the PBOC’s economic concerns over China’s holdings of dollars and the Chinese government’s diplomatic reasons’ for toning down their criticism, said Stephen Gallo, head of market analysis at Schneider Foreign Exchange.

“The central bank is ‘still clearly worried about the

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Sino Payments, Inc., a provider of IP credit and debit card processing services to large retail chains in China and throughout Asia, including supermarket chains and large regional multinational retailers, recently announced that the company is deploying its proprietary SinoPay Global Processing Platform (GPP) in Shanghai and Macau to service Asian regional retailers.

SinoPay GPP converts transaction processing systems from dial up point-of-sale terminals to a modern seamless IP transaction process, which reduces credit and debit card transaction checkout processing times by half. According to the Peoples Bank of China, the volume of bankcard-based transactions in China reached 16.7 billion, totaling roughly $18.6 trillion in 2008, up 22.5 percent over 2007.

“As the conversion from old dial up point-of-sale credit card terminals to Internet Protocol integrated card processing terminals picks up in Asia as it has at most retail chain stores and supermarkets in Europe and America, Sino Payments is poised

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By Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /blockquote"As long as excessive debt is not digested, both monetary and fiscal policies are inefficient. There is not much of an alternative. Either to let the economy collapse, in order to reduce debts, and then use fiscal policy to revive it, or inundate the insolvent economy with public credit, to avoid the collapse, and loose the ability of fiscal policy to pull it out of a prolonged lethargy. Either a horrible end or an endless horror."br /a href="http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/06/after-the-crisis-macro-imbalance-credibility-and-reserve-currency/"After the Crisis: Macro Imbalance, Credibility and Reserve-Currency/a: André Lara Resende/blockquotebr /Well, I think the title to this post makes my view on the high-profile shenanigans we are currently witnessing on the part of two widely respected contemporary intellectuals clear enough, even if Paul would probably respond that he is perfectly well able to take care of himself, thank you very much. Nonetheless, looking at the way the ...