EUROPE’S ENERGY CRISIS IS KEEPING ENERGY PRICES HIGH
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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 […]
The IMF Will Need to Bail Out Europe
The FT has a very good summary of the current state of play in the European debt crisis. Yet another weekend summit critical to the survival of the Euro is upon us. Once again, bottom-up analysis of investments is held hostage to the macro issues at play. The EU is designed to seek consensus and […]
Another Disappointing Year for Hedge Funds
2002 seems like a long time ago, but that’s the last time hedge funds outperformed a simple blend of 60% stocks and 40% bonds. Through 2000-02 during the dot-com collapse hedge funds added value, but since then as assets have flowed in the weight of all that money has steadily dragged down returns. Following a […]