What is the significance of the fact that the most recently issued subprime mortgages are the ones that are running into the biggest problems?
Category Archives: financial markets
Superconduit
The Wall Street Journal describes it as a “superconduit”,
the New York Times refers to it as a “super-SIV”,
and the Washington Post is calling it a
“Master-Liquidity Enhancement Conduit”. Whatever you call it, does it make any sense?
The World Inverted: Does It Matter That Yield Curves Are Sloping Downward?
In glancing at Table 4 the last issue of the Economist (sub. req.), I was surprised that so many countries had downward sloping yield curves. Should we worry?
Inferring market expectations from changes in fed funds futures prices
I recently completed a new research paper studying how interest rates of different maturities change with market expectations of what the Fed is going to do next.
IMF World Economic Outlook on Managing Large Capital Inflows
The IMF has just released several chapters of its semi-annual World Economic Outlook. One chapter is entitled “Managing Large Capital Inflows”.
What’s a “Strong Dollar”?
I used to wonder about the use of this term a lot, at least in the context of government pronouncements. Here’s my answer. First, the use of the term in context. From Bloomberg:
Weak Dollar Boosts Growth Without Fueling Inflation (Update1)By Matthew Benjamin and Vivien Lou Chen
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, whose signature appears on every new dollar bill, may find the weak currency with his name on it helps the U.S. economy more than the strong one he publicly endorses.
Pick a finger
Princeton Professor Alan Blinder offers his thoughts in the New York Times on who’s to blame for the mortgage mess, getting the attention of Mark Thoma, Dave Iverson, Brad DeLong, and Greg Mankiw. Here are my two cents.
Foreign Exchange Market Transactions and Reserves: Recent Statistics
There’s been a cornucopia of forex market information released in the past week, which I’m only now getting to. First, the BIS has released the preliminary results from its Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Derivatives Market Activity, conducted in April of this year. The results are interesting, insofar as they confirm trends evident in the previous survey in 2004. Second, the IMF released its most recent tabulation of foreign exchange reserve holdings (COFER).
More troubles for housing
New data released today portend continued weakness for housing.
What would be the implications of stagflation for the dollar?
The dollar is declining, with no apparent support. That’s because the recessionary factors seem to be dominating. But a reporter’s question about what factors might support the dollar prompted me to think about other influences that might work in a direction opposite the forces alluded to in the conventional wisdom.