Author Archives: Felix

Why Infrastructure isn’t a Bubble

Posted on February 4, 2008 by Felix

Kit Roane has a weirdly bearish piece on infrastructure investment today, looking at it from the point of view of pension funds and bemoaning the fact that they can no longer get predictably high returns on any deal they like. … Continue reading →

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Mankiw Mathematics

Posted on February 4, 2008 by Felix

Greg Mankiw isn’t interested in running the NBER; David Warsh explains why. It isn’t that the NBER job pays badly: the current occupant of the job, Martin Feldstein, earns $600,000 in salary, with another $151,000 in benefits, on top of … Continue reading →

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Inflation Expectations: Less Worrying Than They Seem

Posted on February 4, 2008 by Felix

Anonymous econoblogger knzn has done a great job of moving the inflation-expectations story forwards with a blog entry actually looking at where Greg Ip’s numbers might be coming from. The reason for looking at inflation expectations between 2013 and 2018 … Continue reading →

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The Unedifying Google-Microsoft Fight

Posted on February 4, 2008 by Felix

Herb Greenberg is unimpressed with the spectacle of Google lumbering in to the Microsoft-Yahoo ring, trying to spoil the deal before it happens. "The irony is obvious," he says. "So is the arrogance of Google." Maybe it was simply nice … Continue reading →

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Facebook Notification of the Day

Posted on February 2, 2008 by Felix
Posted in economics | Comments Off on Facebook Notification of the Day

Extra Credit, Weekend Edition

Posted on February 2, 2008 by Felix

The corporate slogan of the month award goes to … Oxford Funding Corp: Nothing like putting the word "meltdown" in your slogan. The competitive advantage of cash in the bank Research Roundup: Monoline Update Worker at Lazard’s Atria Reacts to … Continue reading →

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How Google is Like a Hedge Fund

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Felix

Big stand-alone hedge funds generally did well in 2007; hedge funds owned by investment banks, by contrast, did much worse. I can’t help but see an analogy here: Microsoft is bringing Yahoo in-house, to compete with the big stand-alone Google. … Continue reading →

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Harry Macklowe Takes a Bath

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Felix

How much money has New York property magnate Harry Macklowe lost over the past year? Jennifer Forsyth in the WSJ says that it’s more than $2 billion, although it’s not obvious where she’s getting her numbers from. Mish is more … Continue reading →

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Chart of the Day: Inflation Expectations

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Felix

Greg Ip passes along this chart of long-term inflation expectations, which are now hitting new highs. The chart shows something called the "5yr-5yr forward breakeven" – what the market expects inflation to average over the five years from 2013 to … Continue reading →

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The Unusual Suspects

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Felix

It’s like something out of a movie: a bunch of misfits with nothing much in common are thrown together in an attempt to pull off a massive heist – or acquisition of a monoline insurance company, at least. According to … Continue reading →

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Goldman Loses Microsoft Mandate

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Felix

Which banks did Microsoft mandate to put together its monster $44 billion bid for Yahoo? Morgan Stanley – and Blackstone! This is a huge loss for Goldman Sachs, which advised Microsoft in its failed attempt to buy Yahoo last year. … Continue reading →

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Payrolls: There’s More Rate Cuts Coming

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Felix

I got a sad email from a friend at Morgan Stanley yesterday, talking of the hundreds of employees who were "marched out of the building" at 9:15 in the morning, part (one assumes) of the previously-announced headcount reduction. Morgan Stanley, … Continue reading →

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Microsoft-Yahoo: It’s On

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Felix

OK, never mind payrolls. There’s only one story this morning: Microsoft buying Yahoo – a deal which seems set to send not only Yahoo shares but the entire stock market north. Why would shares in automakers rally on a technology … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Friday Edition

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Felix

Subprime Lenders Get Big Accounting Break at SEC: Jonathan Weil is fisked by Paul Jackson and Tanta. The Dirty Little Secret behind ETFs: Tracking errors as large as 478bp. And you know they’re never in the investor’s favor. Ratings agency … Continue reading →

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Payrolls: Ignore Them If You Can

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

It’s a new month tomorrow, and it’s a Friday, which means it’s payrolls day. Sudeep Reddy has a good preview of what the jobs report might bring; forecasts range from a decrease of 125,000 (thank you Mish) to an increase … Continue reading →

Posted in economics | 1 Comment

New York’s Congestion Charge: The $8 Proposal

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

Aaron Naparstek has details of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission recommendation with respect to NYC’s congestion charge. It differs from the original Bloomberg proposal in a number of respects, and I have to say I like it: it’s much simpler, … Continue reading →

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When Sovereign Wealth Funds Invest for Political Reasons

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

The US is the world’s sole superpower: it has global influence both politically and militarily which no other country can even dream of. What’s more, it does not hesitate to use that influence in its own best interests. The one … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment

MBIA: Triumph of the Techocrats?

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

In the battle of Bill Ackman vs MBIA, the market seems to be speaking quite clearly: MBIA is winning, if only by sheer force of boredom. Ackman’s manifesto might be forcefully written, but MBIA’s stock has soared from an opening … Continue reading →

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What the Next President Needs to Know About the Economy

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

Read a book, save the economy! Floyd Norris is holding out some hope that his readers might be able to come up with a book or three that the next US president could read in order to understand "how the … Continue reading →

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Mortgage Insurers: The Next Shoe to Drop?

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

At the end of 2007, mortgage insurer MGIC had $212 billion of insurance in force. And it’s not performing well: in the fourth quarter alone its claims reached $1.3 billion. The value of the entire company, according to the stock … Continue reading →

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How Regulators Failed the Monolines

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

I have a feeling it’s going to be Monoline Day today. MBIA’s conference call at 11am should be interesting, even though the company has said it’s not going to take any live questions from analysts. Until then, the quote of … Continue reading →

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MBIA: Waiting for the Inevitable Downgrade

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

How is it possible that MBIA lost $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter in the wake of a monster $3.5 billion charge? Didn’t Jonathan Laing just tell us, in Barron’s, that its losses could never get so big so fast? … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Thursday Edition

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Felix

JPMorgan Chase Tower at WTC Site to Lose the Beer Gut Peloton’s `World Coming to an End’ Bet Returned 87% in 2007 Carlyle Chairman: There’s No Crisis Mexico Slashes 2008 Growth Forecast on U.S. Economy: It’s now expected to grow … Continue reading →

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Department of Improbable Statistics, Beer Edition

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Felix

Parmy Olson on beer drinking in Germany: Things will get worse as a new, national smoking ban takes hold across the country. Pub sales should drop by a third this year because of the ban, according to the German Brewers … Continue reading →

Posted in statistics | 1 Comment

The Dangers of Junk

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Felix

Accrued Interest thinks that high-yield is a good buy at these levels (a yield of about 10%). The "value proposition," he says, "is relatively simple": The greatest credit loss rate of the last 25 years was in 2001 at 8.3%. … Continue reading →

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