The analysis and forecasts for the commodity and financial markets for 2008 are coming through thick and fast as the New Year approaches. It is time to delve through the several thousand articles published during 2007 for the opportunity to return to the ten most popular articles of the year. The Housing market dominated peoples […]

Martin Weiss writes: Bernanke’s half-point rate cut this afternoon initially gave the stock market a quick shot in the arm.But then the Dow turned right around, gave back every penny of its gains, and ended the day DOWN 37 points!
Why? Because most investors aren’t dumb. They know what’s going on in their own neighborhoods. They […]

With speculation rife that the Monetary Policy Committee will cut base rate again next week, mortgage lenders have been preparing for the potential increased demand by increasing margins offered on tracker rate mortgages. Denise Harvey, mortgage analyst at Moneyfacts.co.uk investigates.
“In the last two weeks alone, analysis from Moneyfacts.co.uk has revealed that 10 lenders have increased […]

By: David_Urban
A little more than a week ago a lone trader was able to rack up 4.9 billion euros in losses from trading in ‘plain vanilla’ DAX futures. At the time of the discovery by SocGen officials, the losses were less than 2 billion euros. When the futures were sold off, the market crashed setting […]

House prices fell by a modest 0.1% in January, the third consecutive monthly decline
The annual rate of house price inflation edged down from 4.8% to 4.2%
Housing market conditions have loosened further, but there are tentative signs that demand may have bottomed out

Headlines
January 2008
December 2007

Monthly index * Q1 ‘93 = 100

365.9

366.4

Monthly change*

-0.1%

-0.4%

Annual change

4.2%

4.8%

Average […]

By: Michael_Pento
It has been two years since the bursting of the housing bubble began, but we can still hear a plethora of lunacy spewed from market pundits regarding the future of this key part of the economy. After hearing that home prices would never decline, we now hear that real estate is a very small […]

By: Mike_Whitney
“The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom, it’s basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency. Now the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to accumulate dollars.” ‘ George Soros, World Economic Forum in Davos, […]

Two Billionaires Describe Our Outlook - Financial speculator and billionaire, George Soros states in his FT.com commentary : “the current crisis is the culmination of a super-boom that has lasted for more than 60 years.” In June’s Higher Rates Reflect Default Risk we described the end of the last credit boom: “In 1928, the U.S. […]

UK house prices slumped in the quarter to December 07, with London leading the way as momentum gathers towards the 2 year forecast for an average decline of 15% by August 2009. The mortgage banking sector is only just beginning to feel the impact of the housing slump as the number of foreclosures (repossessions) is […]

By: Professor_Emeritus 
Benjamin M. Anderson* - By the fourth quarter of 1930 the trouble with the Bank of United States gave occasion to grave concern. - The Bank of United States was a bank which ought never to have existed, and which certainly ought never to have had the name it had. One leading banker of […]

For politicians, the government’s $150 billion stimulus package is a no-brainer. But for investors, it’s a bomb that could greatly intensify the flood of disasters now unfolding. In my open letter below, I explain why. And in the days ahead, we will give you step-by-step instructions for an ark of protection that would make Noah […]

 By: Anthony_Cherniawski
I have said multiple times in the past that the Federal Reserve doesn’t lead with interest rate cuts. It follows. The proof is in the chart to the left, which compares the 3-month Treasury Bill Discount Rate to the Federal Funds Rate (blue) and the Fed Discount Rate (red). What this indicates is that […]

What Does the Fed Really Know?
Fed’s Folly: Fooled by Flawed Futures?
Brother, Can You Spare a Billion?
$5 Billion a Quarter
Planes, Trains, and Santa Barbara
And Charlie Wilson’s War

It had been my original intention to devote this week’s letter to the view from Europe, as I have been here for the last […]

The US Fed’s emergency 0.75% interest rate cut to 3.5% following the global stock market plunge on fears of a looming US recession now increases the probability of a near certain cut in UK interest rates at the February MPC Meeting, rather than at the originally forecast March MPC meeting. Whilst the US has made […]

By: John_Lee
We have written a series articles dating back to March 2007 tracking the US debt implosion, which are available here . The story started out in early 2007 with the blowout of Novastar and New Century, the multi-billion non-bank intermediary mortgage brokers. In summer of 2007 we witnessed the collapse of American Home Mortgage, […]

By: Christopher_Laird
Synthetic Dollar Short - Richard Russell and other gold writers talked about a ‘synthetic dollar short’ based on debt in 04/5. The thesis is that overly indebted entities will face a day when their loans are called in, and the demand for dollars will rise dramatically, as assets are liquidated to pay off positions/debt.
The […]

By: Jim_Willie_CB
Bankers, Wall Street hucksters, financial network commentators, and floating analysts seem to have flunked basic arithmetic in grand fashion. Maybe they only expose the next link in a long chain of deception, their apparent expertise. One hears estimates of $200 billion on total mortgage bond losses from the Secy of Inflation Ben Bernanke. One […]

By: F_William_Engdahl
The Long-Term Greenspan Agenda
Seven years of Volcker monetary “shock therapy” had ignited a payments crisis across the Third World . Billions of dollars in recycled petrodollar debts loaned by major New York and London banks to finance oil imports after the oil price rises of the 1970’s, suddenly became non-payable.
The stage was now […]

By: Gerard_Jackson
Figures from the Institute of Supply Management are painting a grim picture. Its PMI (performance manufacturing index) stood at 47.7 in December against 50.8 November. (Anything below 50 indicates a contraction). For the same period production fell from 51.9 to 47.3 while employment remained largely unchanged. Ordinarily this would be enough for anyone ‘ […]

The White House is now in full-panic mode. In fact, the falling stock market has the administration so worried that Bush will deliver a speech later today that will lay out the details of a “stimulus package” designed to rev-up flagging consumer spending. The desperation is palpable. Fed chairman Bernanke’s appearance on Capital Hill on […]

Jack Crooks writes: I wish I had a dollar, or maybe a euro, for every time an analyst equated the current subprime mortgage crisis to the Asian financial crisis, and every time the housing bubble was likened to the tech bubble.
With the “R” word threatening in 2008, analysts and economists find themselves turning to earlier […]

By: Michael_Pento
Investors are anticipating that the Fed will continue its easy money policy into 2008, which is expected to relieve credit markets. As a result, the 10-year Treasury note yield has fallen to 4.02% from a high of 5.25% reached in the summer of last year. And as evidence that the fear among banks is […]

In this issue:

What Are They Thinking?
The Reality of Trade Deficits
Fair Tax Nonsense
How to Create an Immigration Depression
Stimulate the Economy by Cutting Spending?
Tax Hikes to Help Us Grow?

In the past week, I have been in the car coming home late from work, with the presidential debates are on the radio. It […]

By: Anthony_Cherniawski
Merrill Lynch, the third largest U.S. securities firm, is expected to write down $15 billion in the fourth quarter, nearly twice as much as previously announced. Analysts had recently been expecting a $12 billion loss for the same period. Citigroup may face another $14 billion of losses, according to J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank […]

By: Ty_Andros
In This Issue- 3 Fingers of Instability

FIRE SALES!
Nights of the Long Knives!
Flights to Perceived Safety!

Introduction
Dear readers, I want to thank you all for a gratifying 2007, the support for Tedbits has been nothing short of phenomenal. We are now on many radar screens thanks to your interest in my work. […]

By: EWI
Have You Watched Market Myths Exposed?
You can see EWl’s Chief Market Analyst Steven Hochberg debunk some of the most widely held market myths and answers some of today’s toughest questions for traders and investors, including:

Why company earnings alone can’t drive share prices up or down.
Why Economics 101 does not apply to the financial markets.
What […]

Is there anyone who still does not understand that talk of ‘inflation’ by officialdom is just a red herring intended to distract us from the far more dangerous dragon of deflation?” Mike Shedlock; Mish’s Global Economic Trend AnalysisWe are to about see how much George Bush really believes the “supply side” mumbo-jumbo he’s been spouting […]