Weekly jobless claims rose to 428,000 which was 11,000 ahead of consensus estimates. It’s a vicious cycle: companies get spooked on renewed recession fears so they slow hiring which puts many out of a job which lowers overall spending which lowers overall company revenue which (tadaaaa) causes another recession. Ah, the circle of life.
And inflation is creeping back into the picture. The Consumer Price Index is up 0.4% while the Core CPI (excluding more volatile food and energy components) is up 0.2%. While many would claim this is just a by-product of all the quantitative easing floating around the globe, it is still worth an eye-raise.
Mortgage default notices surged 33% month over month in August, indicating that the delay between “stop paying” and “stop staying” may be rapidly diminishing. Now, there is the obvious downside of people losing their homes, however there is the second thought of WHY the banks suddenly want to snatch up real estate more aggressively. Could it be that they smell at least a small recovery coming? Only time will tell.
UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank suffered a $2 billion loss at the hands of one rogue trader. One dude. One guy. 2 billion. Damn, buddy. You really put the ‘epic’ in ‘epic fail’. And all the Bourne movies made me think Swiss banks were all high-techy and smart enough to prevent crap like this from happening. That’s Hollywood magic for ya.
No comments:
Post a Comment