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

• Mohamed El-Erian and Ramin Toloui (Financial Times): How to fill the gaps left by dollar decline, November 5, 2009. We should expect to see more discussion in the next few years on new types of reserve assets.

• James West (GoldSeek): Gold price is no bubble, November 4, 2009. The price performance of gold recently has all sorts of armchair economists waxing philosophical on the idea that this is the advent of a price “bubble”. While certainly everyone has and is entitled to their opinion, there are other features of humanity that we all possess, and much like many opinions, are best obscured from view. Declaring that gold is in a “bubble” demonstrates complete ignorance of or disregard for

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News Corp. (NWS) recently reported its first quarter results. Earnings of 22 cents a share surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 17 cents and climbed 10% from 20 cents posted in the prior-year quarter.   Total revenues tumbled 4.1% year on year to $7,199 million due to fall in Television (down 7.7%), Direct Broadcast Satellite Television (down 4.3%), Newspapers and Information Services (down 17.7%), Book Publishing (down 1.6%) and Other (down 44.4%) segments, offset by rise in Filmed Entertainment (up 20.8%), Cable Network Programming (up 10.5%) and Integrated Marketing Services (up 3.1%) segments.   However, significant cost-cutting initiatives taken by management and robust performance at Filmed Entertainment and Cable Network Programming segments have boosted the operating income by 9.3% to $1,042 million. Management expects fiscal 2010 operating income to increase within a high-single digit to low double-digit percentage range.   Filmed Entertainment posted a record first quarter operating ...

Is Warren Buffett Signaling a Housing Recovery?

by Robert Williams, Publisher Thursday, November 5, 2009

Warren Buffett is teaming-up with Goldman Sachs as the investment bank attempts to buy $3 billion of tax credits from taxpayer-owned mortgage firm Fannie Mae.

According to The Wall Street Journal, investments in low-income housing tax credits has waned dramatically in the face of the credit crisis.

Credits are being sold for between 65 cents and 79 cents on the dollar. By comparison – at the height of the real estate boom – developers were fetching 95 cents on the dollar.

(Property developers receive tax credits – worth between 30% and 60% of a project’s cost – to encourage building in low-income areas and to hold rents down. They typically then sell the credits to large financial institutions for the tax benefits they offer.)

Although Buffett and Sachs surely intend

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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.

• Vito Racanelli (Barron’s): The easy money has been made, November 2, 2009. The choppy action last week suggests the going gets much tougher from here. In a year in which the market has jumped far off its lows, the bull has so far talked the talk of earnings growth. It’s time to walk the walk.

• Edward Harrison (Credit Writedowns): Bullish data, recoveries, crashes and the psychology of forecasting redux, November 2, 2009. Is a double dip or crash a baseline scenario? No, not necessarily - but it is increasingly likely. So, as bullish as I believe the data are, I am more worried about a bad outcome, not less.

• Andy Kessler (The Wall Street Journal):

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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.

• Vito Racanelli (Barron’s): The easy money has been made, November 2, 2009. The choppy action last week suggests the going gets much tougher from here. In a year in which the market has jumped far off its lows, the bull has so far talked the talk of earnings growth. It’s time to walk the walk.

• Edward Harrison (Credit Writedowns): Bullish data, recoveries, crashes and the psychology of forecasting redux, November 2, 2009. Is a double dip or crash a baseline scenario? No, not necessarily - but it is increasingly likely. So, as bullish as I believe the data are, I am more worried about a bad outcome, not less.

• Andy Kessler (The Wall Street Journal):

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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.

• Richard Ennis (CFA Institute): The uncorrelated return myth, November/December 2009.

• Peter Clarke (Financial Times): How to avoid a repeat of the Great Crash, October 28, 2009. The chain of events leading from a collapse in stock prices on Wall Street to a Great Depression has leapt from history with an entirely fresh verisimilitude. John Authers (Financial Times): GDP grows, but pain remains, October 29, 2009. US GDP numbers were a good enough reason to halt the return of risk aversion, but the key to whether risk appetite can return depends on US employment data.

• Economist.com: As joyless recovery, October 29, 2009. New figures suggest that America has at last moved out of recession.

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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.

• Randall Forsyth (Barron’s): Reflation trade shifting into reverse? October 27, 2009. Risk assets ranging from stocks to commodities to currencies seem to be faltering after being floated on a sea of liquidity.

• Doug Kass (TheStreet.com):   My “fast money” recap, October 28, 2009. I saw some emerging technical signs of market weakness that could override seasonal strength, including three failed rallies in the past week, a contracting number of new highs on the New York Stock Exchange, a breakdown in the Dow Jones Transportation Average and, generally, stocks have begun to sell off on good and bad news. … asked how vulnerable the market was over the short to intermediate term if I used the quantitative models that

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I visited the Wall Street Journal offices this morning to discuss gold and commodities markets with reporter Simon Constable. Simon and I discussed goldrsquo;s volatility and demand concerns. I also outlined who some of goldrsquo;s key constituents are: There are what they call the price takers and the price makers. The price takers are the jewelers...theyrsquo;re a huge part of the demand equation. The price makers are the investment people who are worried and have a lack of confidence in the governmentrsquo;s policies about the currency. All opinions expressed and data provided are subject to change without notice. Some of these opinions may not be appropriate to every investor. The following securities mentioned in the interview were held by one or more of U.S. Global Investors family of funds as of September 30, 2009: SPDR Gold Trust. #09-758

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

• Joseph Stiglitz (The National Interest): Death cometh for the greenback, October 27, 2009. Whichever path we take, like it or not, we will be moving away from current arrangements, the dollar-reserve system. There are only two questions: will the movement away be orderly or disorderly, and will America play a part in shaping the new system that will emerge?

• Doug Kass (TheStreet.com): Earnings likely to trend lower, October 27, 2009. Underpromising and overdelivering is the oldest game in the investor relations handbook, as earnings expectations are often cagily crafted by corporate managements. In turn, many Wall Street analysts, emulating Ralph Wanger’s zebras, follow that company guidance in adopting a herd mentality that morphs into a Wall

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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.

• George Soros (Financial Times): Do not ignore the need for financial reform, October 25, 2009. It is not the right time to enact permanent reforms. The financial system is far from equilibrium. The short-term needs are the opposite of what is needed in the long term.

• Paul Sandison: The two main threats to democracy and modern capitalism, October 20, 2009. In the present burgeoning economic crisis, already well over a hundred million people across the globe have been thrown into poverty, despair, sickness and are struggling to avoid a premature death. Billions of people abroad are vowing never to allow the United States and the United Kingdom to do this to them again. The remaining question is whether the

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