EUROPE’S ENERGY CRISIS IS KEEPING ENERGY PRICES AND INFLATION HIGH
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Savour the Moment
Sometimes you feel as if you’d like the world to stop right where it is. For most investors, arriving at work and checking their portfolios over coffee this morning should be one of the most pleasant beverages they’ve consumed in many months. After the misery of the third quarter culminating in September’s testing of every […]
The Quiet Buying of Shale Gas Assets
The FT notes in an article this morning how M&A activity in the shale gas arena reached almost $50BN during the third quarter, a 135% jump on a year ago. Some deals were large and notable, such as Kinder Morgan’s (KMP) purchase of El Paso. Others took place out of the spotlight, but what is clearly taking place […]
If you had more money than you knew what to do with…
So says Don Sturm, owner of two community banks in Colorado. And Mr. Sturm’s complaint is not that he’s been amply paid (although he may have), but that depositors are flooding in at a rate that outstrips his banks’ ability to usefully redeploy the money. This is QE2 at ground level. Investors fleeing the treacherous […]
Monday Morning Thoughts, October 24th
There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal highlighting that banks are increasingly the first source of funds for takeovers – providing more funds that the high yield bond market. Kinder Morgan’s recent acquisition of El Paso is cited as an example, but there’s increasing evidence that banks are increasing their risk appetite. The […]
Reining in the Rating Agencies
Through the ongoing and mind-numbing complexity of the European sovereign debt crisis, the bureaucrats in Brussels can be relied upon to introduce some absurdity into their deliberations. The latest is a report in the FT that under certain circumstances the EU will suspend the ability of rating agencies to evaluate sovereign credits. Now it’s true that markets […]