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Market Crash 1929, Mystery Unraveled?
Written by Wim Grommen
In the twenties of the last century the world, and especially the United
States, experienced an economical high. As a result of this, share and
stock prices rose to unprecedented heights, beyond reasonable values.
The underlying economy had decreased in strength without this being
reflected on the stock exchange. Investors were euphoric and stock
prices were forced up against all economic logic(1).
Read more >>
What We Read Today 25 August 2013
Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today's list.
The top of today's reading list argues
that productivity is not the only factor in improving the economy
........ and the last article discusses the real estate implications
of rising sea levels.
'High' Alert: 1000s of Cannabis Plants in German Town as Part of Protest
In
one German town, growing cannabis has become the new method of civil
disobedience. A group of students has been sowing the plant throughout
the town. Forcing local police to hunt around in hedgerows for the seeds
of their protest.
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The Week Ahead: Is Fear Multiplying?
by Jeff Miller, A Dash of Insight
Last week I predicted that the major
theme for the week would focus on whether rising interest rates would
kill the stock market rally. That was reasonably accurate, since the
interest rate story was on the front burner during the wild Wednesday
announcement of the FOMC minutes and also in the discussion of the
disappointing housing news.
On balance, stocks held up pretty well,
but the narrative was quite different. I was struck by a bearish shift
in tone. Since I follow a wide variety of sources from different
perspectives, this surprised me. It was almost as if there was a
campaign of fear - and not just from the usual suspects.
Fed Should Determine Entire Term Structure of Interest
by Warren Mosler
Click on graph for larger image and yield curve discussion at Illusion of Prosperity.
While the Fed believes labor markets have
improved sufficiently to start somehow unwinding QE, they have made it
clear the data and their forecasts are not going to trigger any actual
Fed rate hikes anytime soon. For one thing there is currently no sign of
any kind of developing private sector credit expansion that would cause
them to immediately hike rates to 'cool down'. In fact, at
this point they are keeping rate policy arguably 'as accommodative as
possible' to remain supportive of private credit expansion.
Android Buyers Have an Appetite for Huge Screens
by Felix Richter, Statista.com
When Apple releases the new iPhone next
month it is most likely going to look exactly like the iPhone 5. That
means Apple will, for all we know, continue to ignore one of the biggest
trends in today's smartphone market: giant screens.
In anticipation of last year's iPhone 5 launch, there was plenty of
speculation about how large a screen Apple would grant its new iPhone
model after the company's leadership had long been adamant that 3.5
inches was the perfect size for a smartphone screen. In the end the
iPhone 5 came out with a 4-inch screen, which is still pretty small
compared to the most popular Android phones.
Trefis: Highlights Week Ending 23 August 2013
Written by Trefis
Below is a summary of the activity at Trefis during the past week that Trefis thought Econintersect readers would find interesting.
Trefis
is a financial community structured around trends, forecasts and
insights related to some of the most popular stocks in the US. It
provides the unique feature of allowing the user to model future
valuation based upon projected changes in components of each business.
It also provides communication capabilities among members, including
consensus of member analysis compared to Trefis staff analysis and
blogging opportunities for members.
Click on graphic for larger image and go to
Trefis interactive page.
Click "Read more..." to see our clickable table of contents and most covered companies of the week.
The Routes into and out of the Zero Lower Bound
Econintersect:
Robert E. Hall, Hoover Institution and Department of Economics,
Stanford University, presented a paper Friday at Jackson Hole. In
analyzing the extraordinary monetary actions of the Fed in response to
the Great Financial Crisis, Hall discusses the relationships between
employment and inflation and the interaction with expansionary monetary
policy such as has been practiced by many central banks over the past
five years. Econintersect finds this an excellent and very readable paper, but does find some areas where additional future work is indicated.
Mental Illness Is a Hard Social Welfare Problem
by Renee Haltom - Econ Focus, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
The nation's first mental hospital, the
Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds, part prison
and part infirmary, received its first patient in 1773 in Williamsburg,
Va. A century later, 110 mental hospitals around the country were up and
running.
Infographic of the Day: The Most Generous States In The U.S.
People
who live in deeply religious regions of the country - the solid-red
states of the Bible Belt and Utah - give more of their income to charity
than those who don't. Of the top 10 most generous states, according to a
Chronicle of Philanthropy study based on itemized charitable
contributions among people who made at least $50,000, nine voted for
Mitt Romney in 2012.
Mobile Share of Digital Ad Spend to Rise Sharply
by Felix Richter, Statista.com
Given the fact that an ever larger share
of internet usage happens on mobile devices, it is no surprise that
advertising dollars are shifted to mobile as well. According to a new
forecast published by eMarketer, the mobile share of digital ad spend in
the U.S. could increase from 12 percent in 2012 to more than 50 percent
in 2017.
