China drives steel production growth in February

Moneylife Digital Team | 29/3/2013 @ 10:27am

As per World Steel Dynamics, inventory restocking should continue in China on a broader level as 2012 saw a large destocking of inventory which is still getting replenished More

Governor Stein’s Doubts - II: Risks of quantitative easing

William Gamble | 20/3/2013 @ 2:38pm

In the first part of this two-part article we discussed overheating in credit markets. We now take a look at were the problems exist. Like the Junk Bond ETFs the duration mismatch is not an issue. But if investors began to question the safety of WMPs and stopped buying them, then the whole scheme might explode More

Governor Stein’s Doubts - I: Overheating in credit markets

William Gamble | 18/3/2013 @ 12:15pm

Governor Stein pointed out that a lengthy period of low interest rates confirms an assumption of little risk. This encourages agents to increase financial leverage beyond what might be considered normal or even sane. Borrowers must work within the income budget and not borrow simply because it is easy to service the loan More

Turning Japanese: Avoiding insolvency

William Gamble | 11/3/2013 @ 11:05am

Although the government’s efforts have not been rewarded with either inflation or a healthy economy, it has resulted in the highest sovereign debt in the world at a whopping 200% of GDP. The only reason why Japan is immune from bond vigilantes is because most of the debt is held by locals at home More

Sequestration: What it really means

William Gamble | 4/3/2013 @ 2:27pm

The real problem with the sequestration for both politicians and investors is that the cuts will be phased in over time without an immediate impact. No one is really sure what its effect will be. It is doubtful that either party will feel the need to compromise until there is a consequence either from the markets or from the voters More

Anatomy of a credit crisis: US Vs China

William Gamble | 18/2/2013 @ 3:18pm

China has a powerful elite class, which like the financiers, are a law unto themselves. For the privileged it can mean vast fortunes. It is one of the few places that can give Wall Street some lessons on greed More

Sovereign debt crisis and tax collections

William Gamble | 12/2/2013 @ 4:48pm

A poor system of taxation denies the citizens the services they have a right to expect from their government. But the crisis, both past and potential, have illustrated that the failure to collect taxes can have much broader effects on markets far from home More

Hedge funds lose the edge, beaten by the US market index again and again

Moneylife Digital Team | 30/1/2013 @ 5:59pm

The poor performance of the hedge funds industry last year as well as in the last 10 years has prompted many to question their very existence. Are they really worth it? More

World Bank expects India to inch closer to China in growth rate

MDT/PTI | 16/1/2013 @ 12:31pm

World Bank Chief Economist Kaushik Basu says that by 2015, the growth rate of China would be 7.9% and that of India 7% More

American municipal bonds: How stressed are they?

William Gamble | 14/1/2013 @ 3:33pm

While the low interest rates have allowed many financially stressed municipalities to save money for new projects, they have created their own stresses in other ways. Many of them made generous retirement promises to civil servants, but what they never provided for were the actual funds to pay for the plans More

Bank of America to pay $11.6 billion to settle Fannie Mae deal

MDT/PTI | 8/1/2013 @ 10:39am

Under the agreements, Bank of America would pay $3.55 billion in cash to Fannie Mae and repurchase for $6.75 billion residential mortgage loans it had sold to the government-controlled company More

Superstorm Sandy tops 2012 insurance claims

MDT/PTI | 4/1/2013 @ 12:11pm

According to Munich Re total economic costs in 2012 from natural disasters worldwide including uninsured losses amounted to $160 billion, compared with the previous year's $400 billion More

'UBS tampered with Swiss franc rates since 2001'

MDT/PTI | 24/12/2012 @ 11:13am

Quoting findings in a US justice department probe, Le Matin, the Swiss newspaper said there was evidence that UBS traders had manipulated the rates from 2001 More

India can initiate action against dumping of goods by China

MDT/PTI | 19/12/2012 @ 5:17pm

As a signatory of the WTO, India can resort to anti-dumping actions, anti-subsidies and countervailing measures and emergency protection from imports More

UBS agrees to pay $1.5 billion for manipulating LIBOR

MDT/PTI | 19/12/2012 @ 4:46pm

UBS, the biggest in Switzerland, will pay more three times the amount of the settlement reached in June with Britain's Barclays, another one of the more than dozen banks investigated for trying to rig global interest rates More