Lawrence McDonald

My 17 Lehman Systemic Risk Indicators are Now Flashing Yellow… Quote from my speech at the Rand Merchant Bank Fixed Income Currency & Commodity Conference, Cape Town, South Africa, February 10th, 2012. Special thanks to: Rand Merchant Bank IBM Business Analytics Calamos Investments & Mutual Funds for inviting me to speak at events in the [...]

Courtesy of DC Tripwire Major Actions This Week: White House On Thursday, President Obama hosted Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti at the White House to discuss market confidence in Europe and NATO issues. Also on Thursday, a $25bn settlement was announced between state attorneys general, the federal government, and the five largest loan servicers relating [...]

Article by BBC News Greece faces “uncontrolled chaos” if it fails to agree austerity measures and defaults on its debts, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has warned. He said ministers who disagreed with the spending cuts could not stay in the coalition government, hours after four ministers resigned over the proposals. Greek leaders are trying to [...]

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 [...]