Oil prices are likely to continue facing downward pressure as the year progresses, stemming from an oversupply amid weak demand. The downward pressure placed on oil prices will probably be exacerbated later this year due to seasonal factors, which include the end of the summer driving season. First off, I would like to point out […]
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Thematic Piece
As a quick exercise I wanted to put into perspective the magnitude of California’s requirement for state employees to take three days of furlough a month. The average state employee in California earns US$65,000 per year. This program will impact roughly 210,000 of the states 359,000 employees. This means over the course of one year […]
If anyone is interested here is a piece I recently published on H1N1 for a patient advocacy group: http://patientsandpatents.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/a-historical-view-of-flu-pandemics-a-reason-to-remain-vigilant/ Additionally, if you find that interesting you may also enjoy this supplemental piece, which highlights companies that could benefit in the unfortunate event of a H1N1 resurgence.http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=38fadb7a58ef4addc245a451e474b8a1
I apologize for the recent lack of posts as I got rather caught up with travel and other activities during the holiday season. To start off the year I decided we need to look back before we can look forward. Since the onset of the current crisis we have witnessed what seems like a never […]
I have been receiving a significant amount of email regarding an old entry I wrote back in March 2008 regarding the Baltic Dry Index (BDI). Back in March the BDI was recovering for an interim low it experienced in January on fears of a global economic slowdown, however, since then the situation has become far […]
Back in January I did a piece discussing the predictive power of the Senior Loan Officer Survey, and found that there was some significance to the data. For the survey banks’ senior loan officers are asked to answer multiple questions based on their lending standards and demand for commercial/residential loans as well as consumer loans. […]
One could argue we have moved from an age of exuberance to an age of despondency. Not long ago our major concern was sky rocketing commodity prices, and its effect on global inflation; enter the credit crisis. We are currently witnessing an unprecedented global sell-off with no regards to asset classes or quality, or as […]
This piece is simply an updated version to a piece I published back on March 5th 2008 titled ‘How will it end’. Despite the fact we are much deeper into this financial crisis; the root of the problem has not changed, and that is the US housing market. As an interesting exercise consider that in […]
These are very interesting times… At this point in time, after passing up some deals which could have saved AIG, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw at least part if not all of AIG being bought at bargain basement prices by one of its major competitors. I think it will be tough for them […]
A while back I created an excel file that tracks the conditions of global sub-indices. Essentially, I took over 600 sub-indices from around the world and I broke them out by best and worst performing over the past 6 months, P/E and P/B ratios, and dividend yield. I extracted the 15 best and worst performing […]