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

• David Rosenberg (Financial Times): Equities carry too much risk, September 23, 2009. The banker J.P. Morgan was fond of saying: “I never buy at lows, I never sell at the highs, I play the middle 60 per cent.” Well, from our lens, we are well past that middle 60 per cent point of this bear market rally.

• Roman Frydman and Michael Goldberg (Financial Times): An economics of magical thinking, September 23, 2009. Confidence seems to be returning to markets almost everywhere, but the debates about what caused the worst crisis since the Great Depression show no sign of letting up. Instead, the spotlight has shifted from bankers, financial engineers and regulators to economists and their theories. This is not a

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

• Byron Wien (Financial Times): Focus on big ideas for the best chance of future returns, September 15, 2009. For some time now I have wondered why investors spend so much time trying to anticipate small changes in corporate performance or economic activity, when it is the big shifts that provide the greatest opportunity to make serious money. Perhaps it is easier to figure out whether a company’s quarterly earnings are going to beat the estimates of security analysts or whether the monthly unemployment rate will be higher or lower than expected, but I believe it is better to spend your time trying to think through important trend changes and then waiting them out.

• Andrew Ross Sorkin (The New York

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

• Andy Xie (Caijing.com.cn): New bubble threatens a V-shaped rebound, August 20, 2009. Instead of a V-shaped recovery, we may instead get a W curve. A dip next year, although perhaps not statistically deep, could deliver a profound psychological shock. Financial markets are buoyant now because they believe in the government. The second dip would demonstrate the limits of government power. The second dip could send asset prices down - and keep them down for a long time.

• Economist.com: U, V or W for recovery, August 20, 2009. The world economy has stopped shrinking. That’s the end of the good news.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph): There’s no quick fix to the global economy’s excess capacity,

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

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Biting a bullet, July 27, 2009. In my view, investors have left themselves far too little room for error, not only in stocks, but also in corporate bonds. We’ll take our evidence as it comes, and change our positions as the expected return-to-risk profile of the market changes. For now, we remain defensive.

• Alan Blinder (The Wall Street Journal): The economy has hit bottom, July 23, 2009. How’s the economy, you ask? I have the proverbial good news and bad news, but in this case, they’re exactly the same: The US economy appears to be hitting bottom.

• Wolfgang Münchau (Financial Times): There is no easy way out for central

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Andy Kessler (The Wall Street Journal): The Bernanke market, July 16, 2009, We won’t get real growth until Congress and Treasury get policy right.

• Irwin Stelzer (Times Online): American account: Barack Obama’s cures may just kill any recovery, July 12, 2009.

• Paul McCulley (Pimco - Global Central Bank Focus): What if?, So what should Washington do, if and when - and I stress “if and when”; I’m not making a forecast here! - private sector aggregate (nominal) demand growth looks like it’s going to languish in Japan style for the indefinite future? The answer: Take one cup of Krugman’s advice for Japan and two cups of Bernanke’s advice for Japan - responsibly

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

• Samuel Brittan (Financial Times): A new guide for the perplexed, July 10, 2009. Attempts to make sense of the financial crisis often lead to even more confusion, writes Samuel Brittan. Here is an attempt to outline the main issues.

• Beat Balzli and Michaela Schiessl (Spiegel): Global banking economist warned of coming crisis, July 8, 2009. William White predicted the approaching financial crisis years before 2007’s subprime meltdown. But central bankers preferred to listen to his great rival Alan Greenspan instead, with devastating consequences for the global economy.

• Janet Morrissey (Time): Advice from an economist who saw 1929, July 9, 2009. The Obama Administration should stop bailing out corporate disasters and

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest.

• Joseph Stiglitz (The Nation): A global recovery for a global recession, June 24, 2009. As developed countries struggle to ensure a quick recovery, they need to think of the effects of their actions on developing countries. It is time to begin the restructuring of our global economic and financial system in ways that ensure that the fruits of prosperity are more widely shared and that the system is more stable. This task will not be accomplished overnight. But it is a task that must be begun, now.

• Philip Stephens (Financial Times): Co-ordination falls away as the global crisis abates, June 26, 2009. There was a surprising degree of co-operation on the international response to

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

• Doug French (Ludwig von Mises Institute): Dead banks walking, 11 June, 2009. It’s widely acknowledged that hundreds if not thousands of banks are on the ropes and just waiting for regulators to wrap them in yellow tape some Friday evening. However, fewer than forty US banks have been seized this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) list of problem banks grew to 305 in the first quarter, the highest number since 1994, but of course the names of those banks are not released so that depositors can be forewarned.

• The Economist: Seeing red, June 10. America’s debt is Barack Obama’s biggest weakness

• Arthur Laffer (Wall Street Journal): Get ready for inflation and higher

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

• Andrew Bary (Barron’s): A pessimistic assessment, especially for Europe, June 1, 2009. An interview with Niall Ferguson. The Harvard professor and media star is cautious on the global economic outlook - and bleak about Europe.

• Niall Ferguson (Financial Times): A history lesson for economists in thrall to Keynes, May 30, 2009. The policy mistake has already been made - to adopt the fiscal policy of a world war to fight a recession. In the absence of credible commitments to end the chronic US structural deficit, there will be further upward pressure on interest rates, despite the glut of global savings. It was Keynes who noted that “even the most practical man of affairs is usually in the thrall of the ideas of