Trichet Says Excess Forex Volatility, Disorderly Moves Adverse

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It represents nonetheless a defeat for this State which has turned us, in the blink of an eye, from European success story to a people at the mercy of the benevolence of others. It was notable that the announcement was made... more ›› TWO QUOTATIONS sum up a momentous week for the euro zone. After Thursday’s meeting of the European Central Bank its president Jean-Claude Trichet told a news conference: “If credibility comes back then everything will... more ›̹...

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It represents nonetheless a defeat for this State which has turned us, in the blink of an eye, from European success story to a people at the mercy of the benevolence of others. It was notable that the announcement was made... more ›› TWO QUOTATIONS sum up a momentous week for the euro zone. After Thursday’s meeting of the European Central Bank its president Jean-Claude Trichet told a news conference: “If credibility comes back then everything will... more ›̹...

Stocks poised for timid open
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stocks were poised to open slightly higher Friday as investors digested the latest data on China's trade surplus and awaited the latest from Washington on the Obama-GOP Tax Cut deal. Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), S&P 500 (SPX) and NASDAQ (COMP) futures were up 0.2% to 0.3% ahead of the opening bell. Futures measure current index values against perceived future performance. Email Print Comment China's trade surplus narrowed 16% in November. Separately,...

Angela Merkel not very clever, says former chancellor Helmut Schmidt
Former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt has criticised his country's handling of the European Sovereign Debt crisis, calling the Bundesbank "reactionary" and Chancellor Angela Merkel's policies "not very clever". In an interview with the business daily Handelsblatt, Mr Schmidt, who frequently tops polls as Germany's most respected politician, said Europe lacked leaders who understood the international ramifications of the crisis. Mr Schmidt, a Social Democ ADVERTISEMENT rat who served as West ...

China's financial system: Look again
Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise. By Carl Walter and Fraser Howie. Wiley; 250 pages; $29.95 and £19.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk IT COULD be said that any Financial System that appears to be robust will, in time, reveal some underlying rot. In the late 1990s, for instance, the Asian Financial Crisis appeared to confirm the virtues of London and New York—then the global Financial Crisis happened. Anyone who is overly impress...

Forex swaps with ECB total $60 million: New York Fed
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve provided $60 million of Liquidity to foreign Central Banks in the latest week, the New York Fed said on Thursday. The European Central Bank was the sole institution to tap the swap lines in the week ended... Can more vocal Bernanke keep Fed on message? NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve provided $60 million of Liquidity to foreign Central Banks in the latest week, the New York Fed said on Thursday. The European Central Bank was the sole institution...

Banks That Failed Despite Fed's Cash
The Federal Reserve’s multitrillion-dollar effort to save the Financial System helped prop up hundreds of ailing banks. But not every institution fared so well. Some 20 American banks that tapped tens of billions of dollars from the Fed’s various emergency Lending programs later failed, according to data the Fed released last week. The shuttered banks, all once deemed by the Fed to be relatively healthy, ranged from small community banks in Florida to big savings institutions like ...

Bond-market demonization watch, eurozone edition
Did you know there’s a fight to the death going on in Europe? The NYT covers it today, under the headline “Central Bank and Financiers Fight Over Fate of the Euro.” Let’s see if we can spot a theme here: On one side is the European Central Bank, which is spending billions to prop up Europe’s weak-kneed Bond Markets… On the other side are Hedge Funds and big Financial Institutions that are betting against those same bonds… The war keeps escalating as traders...

German inflation hits two-year high at 1.5%
German 12-month Inflation rose to 1.5 percent in November, climbing from 1.3 percent the previous month, to hit the highest rate in two years, official figures showed on Thursday. Prices rose by 0.1 percent from October, the federal statistics bureau Destatis reported. With the arrival of winter, it was principally fruits and vegetables, as well as fuel, which accounted for the monthly inflation, the statistics bureau said. The European Central Bank's preferred annual Inflation level is just und...

Forex swaps with ECB total $60 million: New York Fed
New York | Thu Dec 9, 2010 4:10pm EST New York (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve provided $60 million of Liquidity to foreign Central Banks in the latest week, the New York Fed said on Thursday. The European Central Bank was the sole institution to tap the swap lines in the week ended December 8, swapping the full amount. The terms for the ECB swap were seven days at 1.21 percent, the New York Fed added. ...

Bank of England Keeps Rates Unchanged
The Bank of England said Thursday that it decided to keep its emergency stimulus program unchanged and the Central Bank's key Lending rate at its record low of 0.5%. The bank's Monetary Policy Committee also left its asset purchase program unchanged at £200 billion ($315 billion). Minutes from the previous meeting showed a three-way split over the direction of monetary policy, with some in favor of raising rates to tame Inflation, and others in favor of more stimulus to encourage growth...

German inflation rises to 1.5 percent
German 12-month Inflation rose to 1.5 percent in November, climbing from 1.3 percent the previous month, to hit the highest rate in two years, official figures showed on Thursday. Prices rose by 0.1 percent from October, the federal statistics bureau Destatis reported. With the arrival of winter, it was principally fruits and vegetables, as well as fuel, which accounted for the monthly inflation, the statistics bureau said. The European Central Bank's preferred annual Inflation level is just ...

Majority of Americans Say Fed Should Be Reined In or Abolished, Poll Shows
A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation’s independent Central Bank, saying the U.S. Federal Reserve should either be brought under tighter political control or abolished outright, a poll shows. The Bloomberg National Poll underlines the extent to which the central bank’s standing has suffered as it has come under fire in Congress, first from Democrats for regulatory lapses before the Financial Crisis and then from Republicans for failing to revive an economy in which t...

Holes and corners
STABILITY is better than crisis and collapse. But what about recovery? After squandering time and cash in a binge that ended in a bust, Romania has sobered up and is trying to cope with its daunting problems. The most pressing is The Economy. In the excitement of joining the European Union in 2007, Romania enjoyed a three-year boom in which annual growth peaked at a stonking 8%. Where a prudent government would have hit the brakes, Romania’s stamped on the accelerator, running a big Budget...

China raises bank reserve levels to curb lending
China ordered its banks to increase their reserves Friday in a move to curb Lending as Financial Markets watched for a widely anticipated Interest Rate hike amid efforts to cool Inflation. The Central Bank's order was the third reserve increase in five weeks and came as Beijing tries to restore normal financial conditions following a flood of stimulus spending and bank Lending that helped China rebound from the global crisis. Banks were ordered to increase minimum reserves by 0.5 percent of depo...

China to raise banks' reserve ratio by 0.5 point+
BEIJING, Dec. 10 (AP) - (Kyodo)—China's Central Bank said Friday it will raise the deposit reserve requirement ratio for banks by half a percentage point from Dec. 20. It will be the sixth time the People's Bank of China has increased the ratio this year in the face of rising Inflation, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The Consumer Price Index, a major gauge of Inflation, moved up to a 25-month high 4.4 percent in October, topping the government's target of 3 percent for the fourth s...

China raises banks' reserve ratios again
By Zhou Xin and Simon Rabinovitch Beijing | Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:24am EST Beijing (Reuters) - China's Central Bank on Friday increased the amount of money that lenders must keep on reserve for the third time in one month, a move to mop up excess cash in The Economy and rein in Inflation. But the decision to raise banks' required reserves rather than Interest Rates means that officials have opted for a milder form of monetary tightening for the time being, suggesting that they believe prices pre...

Senate must press overvalued yuan (Politico)
The full meaning of the midterms will be debated for a long time. But one thing is clear: Voters want Democrats and Republicans to work together to create jobs for Americans. One way we can do that is to pass Legislation that cracks down on Chinese currency manipulation. Democratic and Republican senators joined in March to introduce the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. A similar measure passed the House in September with strong Bipartisan support, 348-79. Before Congress adjourns,...

Despite volatility, 2010 set to be record IPO year
LONDON (Reuters) - The amount raised globally from initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2010 is on track to beat any other year on record, according to Ernst & Young, despite waves of market Volatility which disrupted many planned listings. Fueled by a booming Asian market -- which has accounted for 64 percent of total IPO values -- listings raised $255.3 billion in the first 11 months of 2010, and by year-end are expected to top the 2007 peak of $295 billion, the accountancy group said. "Bene...

Despite volatility, 2010 set to be record IPO year
By Kylie MacLellan LONDON | Tue Dec 7, 2010 7:03pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - The amount raised globally from initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2010 is on track to beat any other year on record, according to Ernst & Young, despite waves of market Volatility which disrupted many planned listings. Fueled by a booming Asian market -- which has accounted for 64 percent of total IPO values -- listings raised $255.3 billion in the first 11 months of 2010, and by year-end are expected to top the 20...

Default and devalue
Iceland shows that the arguments put forth by the banksters and the europhiles are simply incorrect: Iceland’s real gross domestic product grew by 1.2 percent in the July-September period from the previous quarter, the first quarterly increase since the same period in 2008. Iceland entered a slump after its overleveraged Financial Sector collapsed in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ Bankruptcy. Like Ireland and Greece, Iceland has taken a large dose of Austerity measures to rebuild its economy...

More Grim Comedy from Ben Bernanke
"The incompetence that Bernanke has displayed over the past few years makes the Cincinnati Bengals look like a model of excellence," the always excitable Michael Snyder writes at DailyMarkets.com. "Bernanke kept insisting that the Housing Market was stable even while it was falling apart, he had absolutely no idea the Financial Crisis was coming, he declared that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in no danger of failing just before they failed, his policies have created asset bubble after asset b...

Robert Lenzner: Soros Warns U.S. Could Be On Verge Dictatorial Democracy, Slams Fox News, Glenn Beck
Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros warned tonight in New York that the combination of Fox News, Glenn Beck, The Tea Party, and the ability of Americans to fantasize unrealistically about their political system might lead "this open society to be on the verge of some dictatorial Democracy." Soros mentioned George Orwell's novel, "1984″ as a possible precedent for the kind of fantasies being promulgated in our culture today. Orwell's "1984″ satirized the Communist system of...

U.K. Banks Face Government Levy
Five U.K. banks may have to pay hundreds of millions of pounds in a levy that aims to charge them for the risks they pose to the country's economy. The planned bank levy will raise a total of 2.5 billion pounds ($3.59 billion) a year from 2012 onwards, The Wall Street Journal said. The levy has two goals, according to Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban. Sponsored Links "First, ensuring that banks make a fair contribution in respect of the potential risks they pose to the U.K. f...

Thoughts on Finance, by Arnold Kling
Reading Amar Bhide's new book made me wish that more people shared my outlook on banking, finance, and Financial Regulation. I think it helps to keep in mind the following (continued below). 1. In the nonfinancial sector, people want to issue long-term, risky liabilities (shares in fruit trees) and to hold short-term riskless assets (bank deposits). Call these L's (long-term) and S's (short-term), respectively. 2. Financial intermediation attempts to transform some L's into S's. Think of the f...