Submitted by A Dash of Insight
Here is a key question for investors and traders alike:  Do you want to be entertained by the colorful opinions of bloggers about what government should do or would you rather profit by understanding what they will do.
Background
We have highlighted the distinction between normative and empirical analysis — opinions about […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

HOUSING WIRE–In perhaps a bit of good news, sales of existing homes increased in February, trumping most analysts’ forecasts. The National Association of Realtors reported today that existing home sales surprisingly rose 2.9% to a seasonally-adjusted 5.03 million unit rate last month, up from a 4.89 pace in January — soundly beating […]

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Submitted by Businomics Blog
Over on Linked In, Sailaja Sivalenka asks a good question:
Recently, I have come across a few articles that state the reason behind the subprime crisis in USA to be the result of inaccurate credit scoring which could not sufficiently predict subprime default risk.
But, Dr. Makr Greene, CEO of Fair Isaac in his […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
The just-announced terms for the JP Morgan buyout of Bear Stearns include a dramatically different role for the Fed.
In the last iteration the Fed was taking collateral from JP Morgan without recourse.  In the new version JP Morgan takes the first $1 billion of risk and the Fed the next […]

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Submitted by The Capital Spectator
Risk falls into one of two major categories in the realm of finance: the expected and the unexpected. There’s nothing to do about the latter, other than to act accordingly re: the potential that a black swan can fly into your financial life without prior notice. But even expected risks can […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

BENTONVILLE, Ark., Mar. 14, 2008 – In an address to the Council of Teaching Hospitals in New Orleans later today, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president and president of health and wellness, Dr. John Agwunobi will confirm a major milestone for the company’s $4 prescription program. Since its launch in September 2006, the program […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Demographics on education, income, race, occupation, marital status, etc. are available by zip code from the Zipskinny website. You can also view various charts and maps on zipcodes, and can compare up to 20 different zipcodes. Note: The zipcode data from Zipskinny are based on the 2000 Census Bureau data, so might […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
15 States with the Lowest Jobless Rates, January 2008

NEW YORK CSMONITOR—Don’t look for an economic downturn in North Dakota: In fact, the state is holding job fairs in other states to try to fill 13,000 open jobs. “We don’t see any sign of recession in our economy,” says the commissioner of North […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
SAN FRANCISCO — Shoppers are discovering an upside to the down economy. They are getting price breaks by reviving an age-old retail strategy: haggling.
A bargaining culture once confined largely to car showrooms and jewelry stores is taking root in major stores like Best Buy, Circuit City and Home Depot, as well as […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
At least the most taxpayer funded sex change operations? You’ll be very surprised.
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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
ANN ARBOR, MI–This has been the snowiest winter ever in the Ann Arbor area, or at least since 1880 when record-keeping started. And it’s not over yet. That’s because we’re not even into April, a month that normally averages almost 2.5 inches of that pesky white stuff.
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO–80 to 90 percent […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

SEATTLE–Washington’s unemployment rate last month remained at 4.5%, unchanged from January, according to Employment Security Department numbers. The 4.5% rate is just 0.1% above the record low set in March 2007. February’s results mark the 13th consecutive month of unemployment under 5% (see chart above).
“One reason we have low unemployment is because […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
According to actual trading on Intrade.com.
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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
MUMBAI–Hindi is the new Mandarin. Just as Mandarin is being learned by youngsters all over the world to give them a strategic advantage with the emerging China, Hindi too is being sought after as the language of the other Asian tiger. Some schools in the U.S. have decided to introduce Hindi as […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
A few weeks ago I gave a talk on the state of the economy to a group of college students — almost all Barack Obama enthusiasts — who were griping about how downright awful things are in America today. As they sipped their Starbucks lattes and adjusted their designer sunglasses, they recited […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
REEDSVILLE, WISC. — Humpty Dumpty Eggs President Paul Brandt assured himself this week the 52-year-old company is not going out of business despite empty coolers and lack of inventory.

Eggs are a hot commodity these days prior to Easter Sunday, and the Reedsville company is processing about 60,000 eggs daily from about 71,000 […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Craig Newmark has a post today about how more than 50% of people access his blog with Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape. I checked the Sitemeter for Carpe Diem, and it was only about 34% (see chart below). So I decided to check some other blogs.
For Greg Mankiw’s blog, the percent is 58%:
For Marginal […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
From Global Insight:
The ailing U.S. mortgage credit market and housing market is poised to get a lift from a significant potential boost in lending activity by the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). The ability of the GSEs to respond to the severe housing downturn had been severely constrained by: a) caps […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

McLean, VA – Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey
in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 5.87% with an average 0.5 point for the week ending March 20, 2008, down from last week when it averaged 6.13%. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
The study of behavioral finance has exposed many of the heuristics and biases of investors.  While financial pundits are aware of this literature, they are just as susceptible as the average investor.
At “A Dash” we believe that opportunity knocks when too many rush to over-simplify.
Pundits and the  Academic Stereotype
Here is […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
Many investors are confused by the volatile trading in a holiday-shortened expiration week.
The most important factors are bullish:

The Bear Stearns decision shows the determination of the Fed to act when there is systemic risk.
The SEC is sounding warnings concerning those who buy puts and spread rumors to create a situation […]

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Submitted by EconWeeklyite
The Federal Reserve used to have only a few tools to do its job —that is, until it got the genie out of the bottle. Sometimes quietly, other times conspicuously, the Fed is surely changing the way it creates liquidity.
(Jim Hamilton has been narrating these changes since the summer. Part of this post […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
Inspection of the Administration’s approaches to previous policy issues provides some instructive precedents [0], [1], [2], [3], [4] to consider in light of current policy challenges in the financial markets.

George W. Bush at a March 17 speech on the economy. Source: “Bush: Economy facing ‘challenging times’,” CNN.com.From my perspective, the common element is […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
Here are a couple of nice summaries of the credit crunch and the Fed’s response.

If you took a college course on monetary policy more than six months ago, what you learned has already been rendered out of date by the big changes Bernanke has implemented in how monetary policy can be used. Looking […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
Here’s the status of the 2008 NCAA Bracket Econbrowser Challenge now that the tournament is down to 16 surviving teams.
If you’d just bet on the higher-seeded team for each of the first two rounds of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, you would have correctly picked 24 of the 32 first-round winners and 11 […]

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