No, The U.S. Is Not In A Fiscal Crisis

Bilifuduo — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:46:21 GMT

Check out my guest post on Pyschology Today's Cutting Edge Leadership column:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201302/is-there-us-fiscal-crisis-no-and-heres-why

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Housing Rebound

Bilifuduo — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:41:13 GMT

A couple of indicators came out recently that point to a slow but steady housing rebound. First, according to Zillow, housing prices rose 0.6% in November, the 13th monthly increase in housing prices. Moreover, overall prices are up 5.2% Y/Y, the ...

Business Outlook Blows Away Projections

Bilifuduo — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:14:28 GMT

The December Philadelphia Federal Reserve Business Outlook increased from a reading of ‑10.7 in November to 8.1 this month, signalling a significant improvement in manufacturing conditions. This 18+ point jump is even more impressive considering that the expected reading w...

More Evidence of Housing Rebound

Bilifuduo — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 04:21:36 GMT

The AIA Architecture Billings Index, which shows a snapshot of the demand for architectural projects,

The Federal Open Market Committee today officially announced QE3, which the Federal Reserve will undertake through the purchase of $40B in mortgage-backed securities a month until the economy improves. The Federal Reserve believes these actions "should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support ...

More Speculation About QE3

Bilifuduo — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:29:20 GMT

Bernanke delivered his much-anticipated Jackson Hole speech yesterday and it was a main catalyst in moving the markets up on Friday as it ramped up speculation about another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve despite the vagueness of Bernanke's remarks; Paul Krugman

The QE3 Guessing Game

Bilifuduo — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:45:10 GMT

The commotion surrounding a potential third round of quantitative easing continues. In the latest development, St. Louis Fed President Bullard stated that QE3 was unlikely to happen, noting that he's not sure the economic data warrants "gigantic" action on the part of the Federal Reserve. This comes as not much of a surpr...

Congratulations Apple!

Bilifuduo — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:23:30 GMT

Apple has become the most valuable stock to have ever traded, ending the day with a record market cap of $623.5 billion. It should be noted that even with a change in leadership, under Tim Cook, shares of Apple have risen 76%. Now the challenge will be continuing this record growth.

Federal Reserve Comic Book

Bilifuduo — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 17:48:23 GMT

The New York Federal Reserve just released a comic book detailing monetary policy. They should totally make a feature-length film out of this: here.

Citi Not Safest Bank In The World? Crazy!

Bilifuduo — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:32:34 GMT

On August 16, Global Finance released the results of its 21st Annual Ranking of the World's 50 Safest Banks. The ranking, which "has been a recognized and trusted standard of creditworthiness for the entire financial world for more than 20 years," is evaluated along the lines of long-term credit ratings and total assets. Of course, we all know that credit ratings are hardly reliable at times and past performance is hardly indicati...

Where's All The Corn?

Bilifuduo — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 03:31:33 GMT

On Friday, the US Department of Agriculture's crop report was released and the figures were not good. Taking into account the record-high temperatures across the U.S., a drought that's the worst in decades, and the

Recently, there has been a lot of rhetoric about the strength of the current recovery in the U.S. economy and many have stated that it is the "worst recovery since the Great Depression." Just yesterday, Paul Ryan, Romney's VP candidate pick, echoed the same sentiment,

For June, the United States international trade deficit in goods and services decreased significantly from $48B in May to $42.9B in June. Imports decreased to $227.9 billion in June from $231.4 billion in May while exports increased to $185.0 billion in June from $183.3 billion in May. The level of exports was at its hi...

National Economic Activity

Bilifuduo — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:54:24 GMT

The Chicago Federal Reserve just released its June National Activity Index. Some slightly positive news: although the index posted below-average growth, it increased to -0.15 from -0.48 in May. Forty-two indicators improved from May to June, 14 of which still were negative, while 43 indicators d...

July Philadelphia Fed Outlook

Bilifuduo — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:26:02 GMT

Not good. The July Business Outlook from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve is -12.9 compared to an expected -8.0. This is the third consecutive negative reading in the index, showing "overall declines in business." However, this is slightly better than the June Bu...

Self-Driving Car

Bilifuduo — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:43:56 GMT

YES says Google: here.

Paying for Fake Likes?

Bilifuduo — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 14:50:53 GMT

More skepticism of the effectiveness of Facebook's main stream of revenue, advertising, seems to be surfacing after marketers and the BBC find that the likes generated by advertising on Facebook often come from Facebook spam/dubious accounts.

Strength In Treasury Notes

Bilifuduo — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 02:09:52 GMT

According to the Department of the Treasury's Public Debt News, the U.S. had an extremely strong 10-year auction, the strength of which emphasizes the positioning of U.S. Treasury notes as a bastion of financial stability in a world of economic uncertainty. With seemingly no end in sight to the Eur...

My City is Bankrupt...

Bilifuduo — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 02:42:33 GMT

Well, not exactly. The city after which my county in Southern California is based on (and named after) is bankrupt. San Bernardino became the third California city (and second largest after Stockton) to file for bankruptcy this month (after Stockton and Mammoth Lakes).

QE3 and LIBOR

Bilifuduo — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 02:15:44 GMT

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently stated that it was aware of potential issues with LIBOR rigging by Barclays around 2007: “In the context of our market monitoring following the onset of the financial crisis in late 2007, involving thousands of calls and e-mails with ...

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