David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Nov 6, 2009, 2:44 am
So, who did I recommend for the next meeting at the Treasury? (I think there will be one.) Economists View http://economistsview.typepad.com/ Cafe Americain http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Nov 5, 2009, 10:54 am
Going back to bank stress-testing for a moment, one interesting thing that a Treasury official said at the meeting was that unemployment did not have a big effect on foreclosures.  Unemployment has a...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Nov 4, 2009, 2:04 pm
September 2009 November 2009 Comments Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in August suggests that economic activity has picked up following its severe downturn. In...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Nov 4, 2009, 1:19 am
Before I start this evening, to all my fellow bloggers out there, if you were invited to the gathering at the US Treasury and did not come, I have a request and a question: If you were invited, send ...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Nov 3, 2009, 2:48 am
This will have to be brief, because I am tired.  I have had to deal with family and work issues today, and only now have time to blog. You might have seen my fanciful post, Fallowhaven, Part 1.  I ...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Nov 2, 2009, 10:18 am
In a prior job, I spent a decent amount of time on Affordable Housing tax credits.  The idea was to reduce my life insurance company client’s taxable income to the point where they would be clo...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Nov 1, 2009, 12:59 am
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a man named Lord Fallow.  Lord Fallow was the Lord, the leader of his outlying area Fallowhaven, in the Kingdom of Greyscale.  Truth, being the...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 31, 2009, 1:25 am
After my last book review, a reader asked how I was able to read so many books, given my other responsibilities.  My answer is this: I keep a book near me at all times.  When I get a break, I read a...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 30, 2009, 12:25 am
This is not a political blog.  That said, almost all writing on economics and business embeds a political point of view.  I recognize that my view is relatively libertarian with respect to economics...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 29, 2009, 1:04 pm
Bond indexes are what they are.  They represent the average dollar invested in the bond markets.  Those that say that the indexes are flawed miss the point.  Indexes represent the average return of...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 28, 2009, 8:43 am
1) Perhaps the US Treasury is getting a few things right.  Let’s start with lengthening the average maturity of Treasury debt.  I have backed this idea in the past.  It is worthy to note that...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 27, 2009, 2:06 am
Most of us were kids once.  I think I was a kid once, but my memory is fuzzy.  I do remember playing the card game “War.” Nice game, but suppose if you were dealt a weak deck you had the...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 22, 2009, 9:09 am
This was a book that I did not ask for.  Wiley has been sending some books unsolicited.  I’m not glad on all of them, but I am glad they sent this one. Much as I admire Jack Bogle, I am not a...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 21, 2009, 3:44 pm
After the last article on this topic, you would think that they would take me off of the mailing list.  But no.  Wait!  How did GTX Corp do after I wrote my article? In short, when I wrote, the pr...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 2, 2009, 1:33 am
I wrote the following this morning for Finacorp clients: “One of the keys to understanding the current environment is that there is a lot of financial liquidity, which obscures a lack of demand...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Oct 1, 2009, 1:55 am
When I wrote for RealMoney, I would sometimes do Columnist Conversation posts that would be entitled “Miscellaneous Notes,” or “Odds and Ends,” etc.  Occasionally my editor wo...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 30, 2009, 1:38 am
Imagine for a moment that you are managing a large corporate bond portfolio for a major institution.  One of the first things you should internalize is that you will be wrong.  You will buy bonds of...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 29, 2009, 12:50 am
Sorry, it’s been a while since I listed my equity portfolio moves.  I made the following trades yesterday: New Buys: Chubb Computer Sciences Corp Dominion Resources Northrup Grumman National ...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 26, 2009, 11:42 pm
Though Congress may not mandate the sale of vanilla financial products to consumers, it is worth thinking about the concept in general. I have written two articles that argued that consumers should o...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 26, 2009, 3:15 am
I am glad I read this book, but I found it less than satisfactory.  Why?  Wait a moment on that question, while I tell you about the book’s strong points, which I appreciated. AIG’s fou...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 25, 2009, 2:10 am
Last night I wrote a longish post, and the system ate it.  Probably I had not established a firm connection with the server, and when I hit the publish button, it disappeared.  My main point was to ...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 23, 2009, 2:16 pm
August 2009 September 2009 Comments Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June suggests that economic activity is leveling out. Information received since the Federa...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 23, 2009, 2:54 am
This was a horrible day for me.  I tried to fix my shaky internet connection, which troubled my access to Bloomberg.  After some time I had some success, but it pushed me into the late hours of the ...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 22, 2009, 1:33 am
I guess I am a glutton for punishment, but I am going to take the opposite side of the argument from what most have been saying of late regarding the rating agencies.  Those who want historical conte...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 16, 2009, 9:06 am
Okay, I am going out on a limb here, so please understand that what I am saying is a bit of an experiment.  When quantitative easing was originally done in Japan, it was after: a credit-fueled expa...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 15, 2009, 12:34 am
It’s been two years since my last major post on this issue.  A lot has happened since then, much of which points out the truth of what I said. If governments could be powerful enough to insure...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 15, 2009, 12:01 am
What Stories Aren’t Being Told? was my most commented piece since the inception of this blog, and I thank readers.  But Dr. Jeff pointed out in the comments, the tone was on of extreme negativi...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 12, 2009, 11:50 pm
1) Credit cycles tend to persist for more than just one year.  That is one reason why I am skeptical of the run in the high yield corporate bond market at present.  Sharp short moves are very unusua...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 12, 2009, 12:46 am
I have never been a fan of VAR (Value at Risk), but I recognize that mathematical techniques are only as good as those that use them.  Questions arise with any quantitative risk technology: WhatR...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 11, 2009, 8:52 am
Before I start this evening, thanks to all my readers who commented on my post yesterday.  It was my biggest response ever.  I sent to the reporter my summary of your comments. -=-=-==–==-=-=...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 10, 2009, 12:39 am
I did not start blogging in order to start a media career, but sometimes the media finds its way to my door.  I received a call today from a reporter for one of the major television networks, and aft...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 9, 2009, 6:00 am
Monetary inflation leads to inflation in goods, services, and/or assets.  We just went through a decade (and then some) where there was low product price inflation, but there was significant inflatio...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 8, 2009, 2:12 am
Well, thank you Rolfe Winkler and Reuters.  I go off-line on Sundays because it is the Sabbath, so I don’t review the web or catch e-mail, but when Rolfe e-mailed me and I saw it on Monday morn...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 5, 2009, 10:50 pm
So Paul Krugman gets a lot of ink, and everyone goes gaga for it.  I don’t buy his arguments for two reasons: He misdiagnoses the cause of the current crisis.  He thinks it is too much of the...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 4, 2009, 1:08 am
Fortunately my portfolio management methods don’t revolve around  frequent trading.  One of my kids came up to me recently and said, “What did you do today, Dad?”  I said, “...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 3, 2009, 9:35 am
I found this book both easy and hard to review.  Easy, because it adopts two of my biases: Modern portfolio theory doesn’t work, and the equity premium is near zero.  Hard, because the book ne...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 2, 2009, 1:31 am
Before I begin this evening, I would like to give a big praise to Calculated Risk.  CR and his readers do a great job of highlighting stories in economics and real estate; I get a lot of data from th...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Sep 1, 2009, 11:43 am
I have never liked Keynes concept of “animal spirits.” (I reread that piece, and though it is long, I think it is worth another read.  I try not to say that about my own stuff too often.)...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 29, 2009, 10:38 pm
Sometimes a single article can change my direction for publishing for an evening.  So it was for this article, Hedge Fund Keeps Reins on Risk.  I had not heard of Graham Capital Management until tod...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 28, 2009, 2:08 am
When Robert Benmosche was named CEO of AIG, I thought it was a good thing.  Ed Liddy, possibly tired of the abuse, wanted to move on.  Liddy was primarily skilled with personal lines P&C insurance, ...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 27, 2009, 2:53 am
“Just give me the number, willya?”  Ugh.  I’ve had the question asked many times in my life working in or alongside financial reporting in a company.  They need a number for the b...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 25, 2009, 4:05 pm
This may become a series, but I’m going to post some questions I have been asked, and the answers that I gave.  Anyway, here goes: Has anyone prepared a summary of US Treasury bonds, say five ...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 25, 2009, 2:20 am
As I have said before, it doesn’t matter who the next Fed Chairman is, because all of the candidates are basically the same when it comes to monetary policy.  There are no hard money candidates...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 25, 2009, 1:58 am
Many people think in non-systematic terms.  They consider the US current account deficit to be an unmitigated disaster.  They look at one side of the issue and conclude that the US has become less c...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 21, 2009, 2:37 am
This piece is one of my experiments where I try to straddle two different investment worlds in an effort to bring more understanding.  The two world are stable value funds and commodity ETFs. Commod...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 20, 2009, 3:35 am
The idea of a carry trade is simple.  Borrow inexpensively, and invest at a higher yield.  Make money. Too easy you say?  Right.  Usually something has to be compromised for a carry trade to work...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 15, 2009, 11:35 pm
I don’t really have one unified article type when I write here.  Sometimes I have a really strong conviction about something, and then it flows.  At other times, I gather data, do an analysis,...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 15, 2009, 12:09 am
There are many celebrating the recovery as if it were already here.  This is a brief post to outline my main remaining concerns for recovery of the global economy. 1)  China is overstimulating its ...
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David Merkel posted an article on The Aleph Blog - Aug 14, 2009, 12:51 am
1)  A modest proposal: The government announces that they will refinance all debtors.  Not only that, but they will buy out existing debt at par, and allow people and firms to finance all obligation...
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