| Old Media and This Week's Markets: Who Knows They're Up -- Quite a Bit ...
Stocks Out of Nosedive"; the Dow and S&P were positive for the week at the close on Wednesday). This pre-opening report today from the Associated Press ("U.S. Stocks Head for Strong Open") gets close as it describes the events of the week thus far in the second-last paragraph, but doesn't actually say that this week has been positive. This seems to be a pretty obvious piece of missing information business readers should know. Why is it missing? Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com. —Tom Blumer is a CPA based in Mason, Ohio and a contributing editor to NewsBusters .
Goodbye to all that: the worst is over for the global credit crunch
Global stock markets have suffered their worst early-January trading since records began in the 1920s. Conventional wisdom is again overwhelmingly gloomy - about the global economy, the asset markets and even the sustainability of the global financial and trading systems. However, conditions are not nearly as bad as the headlines and market pundits suggest. In Britain, there seems to be almost no chance of economic and financial disasters comparable to those suffered from 1990 to 1992. In the 17 years that I have been writing these Economic Views, I have devoted my first article in January to challenging, where appropriate, the conventional wisdom about the world economy in the year ahead. Here, then, are five ways in which I think conventional wisdom seems worth challenging in 2008: 1.
3 different voices about U.S. outlook
Oil. Gold. Cotton. Brazil. Those are a few of Byron Wien's favorite things. Wien is an influential Wall Street strategist who was at Morgan Stanley for two decades before moving to hedge fund Pequot Capital two years ago. He helped draw a crowd of 450 investment analysts to the CFA Society of San Francisco's third annual forecast dinner on Thursday night. Other speakers included Christopher Ailman, chief investment officer for the $174 billion California State Teachers' Retirement System, and Bruce Kasman, chief economist for JPMorgan Chase. Wien was the gloomiest of the three. Despite interest rate cuts - he sees the federal funds rate dropping below 3 percent this year and possibly below 2 percent - Wien says the United States will suffer a recession as housing remains soft and lenders avoid anyone with a whiff of risk.
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