by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Biggest Credit Bubble in History Flashes Warning: ‘Seek Cover’
Hidden in the IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report is a doozie of a chart. “Seek cover, implosion in sight,” it screams. It depicts the bubble in covenant-lite and second-lien loans, the same that helped blow up the banks in 2008. Only this time, they’re even worse.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on People In Eastern Ukraine: We Don’t Want To Be Annexed By Russia!
Armed pro-Russian separatists barricaded in official buildings in eastern Ukraine exhorted Uncle Putin to come to their aid. But sudden breath of fresh air: a poll found that an overwhelming majority of the people in that region want to remain part of Ukraine.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Head of EU’s Newfangled Bank Regulator: Markets Are Dumb, Pumps Stocks Of Teetering Banks To Keep them From Toppling
It’s not often that a bank regulator proclaims stocks of teetering banks are undervalued because markets are too dumb to value them correctly. That’s what Danièle Nouy, chair of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism just proclaimed. She has a motive.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Hot Air Hisses Out Of Housing Bubble 2.0: Even Two Middle-Class Incomes Aren’t Enough Anymore To Buy A Median Home
Giant PE firms and REITs have become the largest landlords in the country over the last two years because “there was a moment in time where it made sense,” but now home prices are too high, the business model has collapsed, and buyers evaporate.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on “Champion in value destruction”: Russian Businesses Suffocating Under Putin’s Political Agendas
Russia doesn’t need sanctions for its economy to slither into trouble. Last year, growth slowed to 1.3%, worst in four years. This year started out even shakier. The current entanglements are knocking the economy into outright recession, and fast.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Turns Out, Even The Price of Beer Is Rigged
Everything is rigged. Stock markets, forex, interest rates, gold, silver, oil…. After battling that rigged world all day, you finally get to take that first big gulp of beer to heal the wounds, knowing that it’s the one thing that hasn’t been rigged against you. Or so you’d think.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on ‘Hope-for-Growth Momentum Investing’
“Why worry if the price can only go up” – Societe Generale’s Head of Quantitative Equity Research. Now even after companies cut earnings-per-share estimates, their stocks go up. Because everyone believes that everyone believes that….
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Tesla’s Sales Stall, Don’t Even Amount To A Rounding Error
March auto sales trickled out today. Beneath the wondrous hype about how they’d finally exceeded expectations, after they’d been perfectly awful for five of the prior six months, was a doozie. And the media, which normally fawns all over Tesla, covered it with a blackout.
