News
CNN Money | Why Obama won't bail out Detroit
Four years ago, the Obama administration rode to the rescue of two Detroit automakers, pouring $80 billion into General Motors and Chrysler Group to see them through their bankruptcies.
Market Watch | National activity index less negative in June
The U.S. economy improved slightly in June, as the national activity index rose to negative 0.13 from negative 0.29 in May, according to the Chicago Fed.
WSJ | U.S. Growth Outlook Stuck in Neutral
Disappointing economic and corporate-earnings reports in recent weeks have dashed hopes that the U.S. was at last entering a phase of solid, self-sustaining growth. Instead, while economists expect a modest second-half pickup in growth, few are predicting the kind of substantial rebound needed to quickly bring down unemployment, raise wages and insulate the U.S. from economic threats abroad.
Businessweek | The Rise of the Intangible Economy: U.S. GDP Counts R&D, Artistic Creation
On July 31, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis will rewrite history on a grand scale by restating the size and composition of the gross domestic product, all the way back to the first year it was recorded, 1929. The biggest change will be the reclassification—nay, the elevation—of research and development.
Market Watch | Existing-home sales fall 1.2% in June
The National Association of Realtors said June existing-home sales on a seasonally adjusted basis fell 1.2% to an annual rate of 5.08 million -- the second-highest rate since November 2009 -- from a downwardly revised 5.14 million.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Real Clear Markets | Policies of Obama and Bernanke Lead To An Uneven Recovery
President Obama has often made statements in support of income and wealth redistribution. He claims to believe that the country would be better off if we took money away from the rich and gave it to the poor. Many of his policies seem designed to accomplish this. Yet, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, he has failed in reaching his goal.
Washington Times | The war on coal
We’ve had the war on inflation. The war on waste. The war on terror. There’s even a war on women somewhere, though nobody has actually seen it. Now the World Bank is enlisting in the war on coal, following the White House in opposing the digging of affordable energy out of the earth. This is bad news for developing nations desperate for the cheap energy they need to climb out of poverty.
Washington Post | Americans are defining prosperity down
If proverbial Martians descended on Earth and toured America’s crowded shopping malls, traveled its congested highways and sampled its technological marvels — from the many cable channels to ubiquitous smartphones — these visitors would be hard-pressed to describe the United States as poor or its economy as failing.
Real Clear Markets | Wells Fargo Securities: Weekly Economic & Financial Commentary
This week most of the economic data pointed to a soft patch in economic growth in the second quarter. Retail sales ticked higher in June but less than many analysts expected, while consumer inflation rose more than expected for the month. Housing starts data also pointed toward a downshift in the pace of new construction and permitting activity, likely due to temporary factors.
Market Watch | Why there’s no housing bubble...yet
As home prices rise, so are concerns that a new housing-market bubble may be appearing, particularly in cities with double-digit annual growth rates.
AEI | Remake Detroit, or empty it
If Detroit were its own city-state — a bizarro version of prosperous Singapore — it would be a place the U.S. State Department would regularly issue travel warnings about, where “long-term, protracted conditions make a country dangerous or unstable.” Detroit’s murder rate, for instance, would be higher than that of all but a handful of other countries.
CATO | High Frequency Trading: Do Regulators Need to Control this Tool of Informationally Efficient Markets?
High Frequency Trading (HFT) is a form of algorithmic trading where firms use high-speed market data and analytics to look for short term supply and demand trading opportunities that often are the product of predictable behavioral or mechanical characteristics of financial markets. Often called "equity market making," HFT firms usually hold their positions for less than a minute while perpetually looking for opportunities to buy and sell. These transactions happen thousands of times a day, take microseconds, and often net less than a penny in profit per share traded.
Blogs
WSJ | Housing Dominates This Week’s Data
Sales of existing homes will be reported on Monday of the trading week ending July 26. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expect resales increased 1.9% to an annual rate of 5.28 million in June. The rise is suggested by past increases in the pending home-sales index that tracks contracts signed but not yet closed to buy an existing home.
WSJ | Investors Struggle With Cash Conundrum
Teams of respected investment pros are scouring the world for stocks and bonds they can buy on the cheap, and coming up empty. They are left holding some cash, telling their investors and shareholders they prefer to dilute their returns now rather than risk losing a lot by buying near the top.
