Peter drinks coffee, plays chess, teaches finance, and does some fun econometrics time-series stuff. He also cooks dinners, detrends return series, and supports various political causes. He abuses the English language with love and affliction, but believes that officer Crabtree still beats him with a few horselengths. He is a reformed Molskinista, an avid Marxist (of the Grouchoian kind), and a fan of 1980s Britcoms.
Stocks rose. On the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday, 2,513 stocks advanced and 782 declined on volume of 1.2 billion shares.
Bonds advanced. The 10-year note rose 13/32, or $4.06 for every $1,000 invested, to yield 4.885% Wednesday, and the 30-year note was up 21/32 to yield 5.006%.
The dollar weakened. The euro was at $1.2852 from $1.2785 late Tuesday, while the dollar was at 115.79 yen from 116.10 yen.
The lower reading on consumer inflation raised hopes that the Federal Reserve’s rate-lifting campaign has ended; the DJIA had climbed to within 81 points of its all-time high. The Labor Department’s consumer price index increased by 0.4% in July, up from a 0.2% increase in June. This is in line with analyst expectations. The less volatile core CPI grew 0.2% last month. Thus, without the influence of volatile food and energy, the core CPI grew below expectations. On a yearly basis, the core CPI is up 2.7%. Additionally, the wholesale inflation also showed moderating inflation pressures.
The housing prices show signs of some well-neededmoderation.
Just a couple of interesting blogs…
Greg Mankiw enters into the ongoing debate between Jeremy Siegel and John Bogle on passive investing in NYT. The core point is Siegel’s recently advanced idea of fundamental investing – creating indexes that reflect fundamental or value directed valuation ratios, capitalizing on systematic mispricing in the markets and the inability of active managers to reap value. Mankiw sides with Bogle. And it is easy to see why from an efficient market perspective.
On the happiness front, there is a small piece on Money and Happiness in the Wall Street Journal. My point is that I would rather cry 0n the backseat of a Bentley than a Hyundai.
In other PA political news, Hazleton, PA, faces a lawsuit. Recently, mayor Lou Barletta and Hazelton council members passed a controversial legistlation that was to punish those who hire or rent to illegal immigrants. Landlords would be fined $1000 per illegal immigrant. This act also made the English the town’s official language. This is a sad infringement on civil liberties. I do not support any sides of the current illegal immigration debate. Any legislation on any level attempting to change the status quo would make the situation worse – nothing Pareto optimal here. What worries me is that other communities across the United States have requested information on this proposal for use in their own municipalities
The debate on what colleges do for a living continues. I am a strong believer in the objective certification model of eduction, an approach recently suggested by the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Already and unexpectedly, there is some tension brewing. There is a crisis in higher education and the sooner we solve it, the better for the students.
Anybody who has ever looked for work knows that interviewing is a rather intimidating experience. We think what we do is right, but according to WSJ we do not. Here is the advice.
Change is painful. Thus, lifehack.org makes suggestions to lazy (and not so lazy) people on self help and personal development. Their advice includes
Also, according to the US Surgeon General 1 in 5 in the US is mentally ill. The surveys estimate that during a 1-year period, 22 to 23 percent of the U.S. adult population—or 44 million people—have diagnosable mental disorders, according to reliable, established criteria. In general, 19 percent of the adult U.S. population have a mental disorder alone (in 1 year); 3 percent have both mental and addictive disorders; and 6 percent have addictive disorders alone. Consequently, about 28 to 30 percent of the population have either a mental or addictive disorder. That’s only 90 million people.
I have just started using ZuluPad a notebook cum wiki. So far, it has bveen quite useful to keep research notes and ideas. More about the trial as the world turns.
It is unbelievably hot here in Central PA and the temperature is expected to hit 100F.
WSJ and BBC both report that Fidel Castro undergoes surgery. Castro is 79 years old and transfers power to his 75 year old younger brother, Raul. This is not surprising, he has been in bad health lately. The question now becomes, when can I smoke a Cuban legally. I am willing to take bets.
Jomentum is cool. Both the Daily Kos and Wonkette sacrifice serious binary resources into the analysis of Joementum, or rather the lack of it. If the Colbert Report is discussing Joementum, clearly there is something to talk about. BTW, Mitt Romney is out. No link’s necessary …
CNN is taking on www.youtube.com and allows now users to post content. The White House is updating its pressroom, which originally was built atop a filled in swimming pool. These new changes will help the pressroom to communicate more drama.
Smut stinks. Howard Stern is not working out for Sirius. It posts wider loss, but the subscriber base is increasing. According to Sirius it added 600,460 subscribers; it has 4.7 million at the end of the quarter. The company expects to have 6.3
million subscribers by the end of 2006. Previously it expected 6.2 million. Last week, XM posted a wider loss for Q2 and cut their subscriber estimate. XM, which has seven million subscribers, expects to end the year with between 7.7 million and 8.2 million.
The appeal of ETFs is shifting to Main Street. This is a positive and very interesting development, which in the long run changes the structure of both the mutual fund and the private financial advisor industries.
The question of maturity is always relative. New web-start ups lure executives away from eBay and Yahoo. Only 7 years ago, staid old economy companies – GE, IBM, CA – lured lost people to the upstarts. Does this new development mean that eBay and Yahoo are both old economy companies now?
And the Beirut stock market reopened for trade today. One of Beirut’s main indexes, the BLOM, closed 4.1% lower at 1,230.22.
Blogosphere
Political Calculations discusses Greg Mankiw’s perspective on the Federal Funds Rate. Mankiw’s method is attractive in that it incorporates two of the economic factors that the Fed is chartered to influence through monetary policy: the rate of inflation (measured as 12-month change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban consumers, less food and energy) and the rate of unemployment.
Voluntary exchange discussess the economics of World War I. A book edited by Stephen Broadberry and Mark Harrison for specialists and folks interested in history discussess the economic factors behind the war. The reviews are interesting here and here.
The first is a poll, Who’s running the worst campaign in America? My guess is Santorum. Running on illegal aliens in PA? Come’n … Of course, I am also partial to Cathrine Harris.
And of course, there is Ann Coulter-bashing. The new sport in the liberal blogosphere.
Jomentum is cool. Both the 