Lawrence McDonald

Courtesy of DC Tripwire Major Actions This Week: White House ·         On Wednesday, President Obama is expected to give remarks on the economy during a speech in northern Virginia. Senate ·         On Wednesday, Senate and House conferees will meet to consider the payroll tax/unemployment insurance/”doc fix” extension (HR 3630). House ·         Next week, the House [...]

Article by BBC News The EU’s 27 leaders are discussing how to create jobs and growth amid calls to go beyond enforcing budget discipline. The EU has more than 23 million unemployed people and there are fears that wide-ranging budget cuts will harm enterprise and training. The eurozone crisis is dominating the EU summit in [...]

Article by Ann Saphir and Jonathan Spicer, Reuters The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy. Bernanke on Wednesday opened the door a bit wider for the Fed to return [...]

Larry McDonald, Senior Director, Newedge, discusses what’s driving the high level of bear sentiment in the market and a future play on the euro.

Article by Jody Shenn, Lorraine Woellert and Prashant Gopal, Bloomberg President Barack Obama answered Ben S. Bernanke’s appeal for more action to fix the U.S. housing market that’s restraining the economic recovery by proposing a plan to help borrowers reduce their monthly mortgage payments. Obama is sending Congress legislation that would allow homeowners to tap record-low borrowing costs, potentially boosting [...]

Article by Austen Sherman and Sara Eisen, Bloomberg Whether or not Greece is able to reach an agreement on the restructuring of its debt, the country is set to “implode” as the economy contracts, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Steve Hanke. “The game is completely over,” Hanke, professor of applied economics, said at the Bloomberg Sovereign Debt Crisis [...]

Article by Robert Winnett and James Kirkup, The Telegraph People living in benefit-dependent households have been urged by the Prime Minister to “go out and work” rather than complain about the loss of welfare payments. David Cameron said that living on welfare had become an “acceptable alternative” to working and suggested that benefit payments were [...]

Courtesy of DC Tripwire Major Actions This Week: White House On Wednesday, the Obama Administration announced that they would not approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Yesterday, President Obama traveled to Orlando, FL, to announce his initiative to promote tourism in the U.S. as a part of his “We Can’t Wait” campaign of executive actions. Senate [...]

Article by Paul Dobson, Emma Charlton and Lucy Meakin, Bloomberg European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s unlimited three-year loans to euro-region banks may give Italy and Spain only temporary respite from the region’s debt crisis. Two-year Italian and Spanish notes rallied since the ECB said Dec. 8 that it planned to offer as much liquidity as [...]

Article by Lucia Mutikani, Reuters The number of Americans filing for new jobless benefits dropped to an almost four-year low last week, and factory activity in the mid-Atlantic expanded moderately, suggesting the economy carried some momentum into the new year. But the pace of growth probably will slow. Analysts cautioned the drop in jobless claims [...]