Monthly Archives: March 2008

How Spain Avoided a Housing Recession

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Felix

Francisco Torralba has a fascinating look this week at the differences between the mortgage securitization markets in the USA and in Spain. Spain has experienced a much bigger housing bubble than the US, but the problems there are tiny compared … Continue reading →

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Why Airstrikes Don’t Move Markets

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Felix

There’s a lot of big news on the geopolitical front right now: Russia has elected a new president, Israeli forces have pulled out of Gaza, the US has launched airstrikes in Somalia. How come the markets can plunge in reaction … Continue reading →

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Stocks: Lots of Room to Fall

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Felix

Tony Jackson has a good overview of the divergence between the stock market and the bond market. In Europe, the iTraxx Europe index of investment-grade credits has hit an all-time high of 138bp, which seems like a screaming buy over … Continue reading →

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A Bear Market for IPOs

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Felix

Justin Fox reckons that the present financial crisis can’t be all that bad if it’s coinciding with the biggest IPO in US history – especially when that IPO (Visa) is a financial one. It’s a good point, but it’s also … Continue reading →

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Magazine Website Datapoint of the Day

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Felix

I knew that magazines, as a rule, don’t get it when it comes to the web. But I didn’t realise it was this bad: Fewer than 10% even draw as many people online, where their content is free, as they … Continue reading →

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Why Congress Can’t Fix the Ratings Mess

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Felix

Credit ratings wonks will love the detail in Christopher Whalen’s interview with Drexel University’s Joseph Mason today. But my favorite bit is a remark near the beginning: Mason: I have been meeting with some large pension funds outside the US, … Continue reading →

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Municipal Ratings: S&P and Moody’s Diverge

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Felix

The NYT does a very good job of moving the municipal bond ratings story forwards this morning – and making it the newspaper’s lead story, no less. One thing it does is answer my question for John Carney and provide … Continue reading →

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Sawdust Datapoint of the Day

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Felix

Joel Millman’s front-pager on sawdust in the WSJ is everything a WSJ A-hed should be. As the construction industry slows down, there’s much less sawdust to go round, and that’s having devastating consequences in all manner of unlikely places: The … Continue reading →

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Ben Stein Watch: March 2, 2008

Posted on March 2, 2008 by Felix

I have to admit I harbored some hope that Ben Stein wouldn’t have a column in the NYT this week. After all, he had three columns in December, two in January, and only one in February – simple extrapolation would … Continue reading →

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Extra Credit, Weekend Edition

Posted on March 1, 2008 by Felix

The MacBook Air chronicles #4: success with VMWare: "Someday a business historian will figure out whether Microsoft’s decision to release the obviously-unready version of Vista one year ago was a minor bump that will soon be forgotten, or instead a … Continue reading →

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