by Markus

Is the serious situation in Greece mainly homemade? Yes. Was Greece ready to enter the currency union? No. Did the other Eurozone members contribute to the situation with their laissez-faire policy regarding Greece´s cooked books? Yes, absolutely!  Is the country able to fight the crisis alone? No. Does it mean Greece will need a bail-out [...]

by Dino

I bet you you’ve heard this question before: are we in a recovery, or is this a bear market rally? If you ask me, I would resort to one of my favorite Keynes quotes: “We simply don’t know.” However, the media are full of pundits who do know. For instance, the totally unbiased Larry Kudlow [...]

by James

Last week’s Outlook & Review contained the following comment: “I am going to stick my neck out and predict that we are going to get a bit of positive movement here. … (In) this business there is no such thing as being slightly wrong.” And, when she flies, she really flies. After a depressing session [...]

by Markus

According to Playboy, the Rick Santelli rant was a PR event planned by the usual right-wing suspects as early as August 2008. What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called [...]

by Dino

On July 17, angry Pakistani investors stoned the Karachi Stock Exchange, smashed windows and cursed regulators after the benchmark index fell for a 15th straight day, the worst losing streak in 18 years. US and UK regulators must have been thinking of these spiteful reactions when they decided to take the matter of falling share [...]

by Dino

On March 19 – a few days after the Bear Stearns bailout – I explained why I thought that Bear failed while Lehman will survive. I’m afraid I have to revise that assessment. Today I will argue that Lehman has veered down a path of Enron-like practices that will threaten its existence as an independent [...]

by Dino

The Maestro’s approval rating among fund managers keeps sliding. After Jim Rogers’ scathing remarks and invitation to resign on CNBC television, the latest attack comes from William Fleckenstein, MSN columnist and president of Fleckenstein Capital, a Seattle-based hedge fund. Ex-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan is routinely blamed for creating the U.S. housing bubble by keeping [...]

by Dino

Good news for Market Melange: Standard & Poor’s is reading our blog. In particular, they read our Wednesday March 19 post (The financial value of experience: why Bear failed and Lehman will survive), in which we reviewed Lehman’s and Goldman’s most recent earnings reports and observed that their net incomes contracted year-over-year by 31% and [...]