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The latest speeches from Federal Reserve officials show policy makers still remain divided on what to do. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said the Fed should start reducing the size of its "quantitative easing" bond-buying program and stop

Presented with little comment aside to hope that it is clear just what this 'recovery' is all about... source

The political situation in Portugal remains fragile to say the least, although the threat of imminent snap elections seems to have receded somewhat. The next key step will be the 8th Troika review, which was initially supposed to start on Monday but

The Securities and Exchange Commission today passed a final rule to permit registered broker-dealers to engage in retail forex business activities, provided that the broker-dealer complies with the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the rules and

Just a few random market thoughts here to end the week….If you’ve ever been involved in a short squeeze you know how the market can go against you and at times force you out of your position. The idea that you’re borrowing money to short something

The trial of the infamous ex-Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre, which starts Monday, could put a face on the type of Wall Street recklessness that imploded the housing market and almost sank the economy five years ago. "This is one

The euro was lower against the dollar on Friday as the dollar recovered from a selloff that started Wednesday when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that the bank may not be as close to tapering its asset purchase program as previously

Not since the 1990s has gold fallen more than 35% off highs. None of the declines since 2006 exceeded that level from its cycle highs. As the metal attempts to complete its first rising month since March, the debate ensues between the bulls and

We invited Bill Black to return to explain whether the level of systemic risk due to fraud in our financial markets has improved or worsened since the dire situation he painted for us in early 2012. Sadly, it looks like abuse by the big players has

The dollar came off highs against the other major currencies on Monday after U.S. retail sales missed expectations in June, fuelling fears that the economic recovery is losing momentum. During European afternoon trade, the dollar trimmed gains

Fed Put Reiterated, Credibility Gone Again Overall, it was a quiet trading day until the 2 pm release of the June 19th FOMC minutes. The release prompted instantaneous sharp moves in several assets that quickly reversed. June 19th was a press

Now that Bernanke has thrown in the towel and reverted back to the old bad news is good news regime (or did he - GETCO's vacuum tubes at least sure seem to think so), there was hardly anything more the market could ask for than a horrible Initial

When we tapered our coverage of HFT manipulation and stock market abuse some time ago, we thought that the message had been heard loud and clear: high frequency trading is a sophisticated market manipulating parasite, whose only real function is to

Earlier today, the House passed the Farm Bill without any funding provision for food stamps. For some context, here's a chart tweeted on Monday by Bloomberg Briefs' Economist Michael McDonough. The cost of the program — which spiked during the

Industrial production from euro area is the major data due on Friday, headlining a light day for the European economic news. At 3.00 am ET, Spain's statistical office is set to release final consumer price figures for June. According to preliminary

Nothing special is going on today. It's just that markets are gaining all around the world. The global risk-on train continues. Japan more than erased yesterday's losses, with the Nikkei rallying 2.4%. In Europe, markets are up again. France is up

More than one in two people think corruption has worsened over the last two years, according to a public opinion survey by Transparency International. Its annual Global Corruption Barometer found 27% of respondents said they had paid a bribe when

While we have already extensively deconstructed the quality components of jobs in the US, showing first that in June 240K full time jobs were lost, even as 360K part-time jobs were "gained", and second that so far in 2013 only 130K full time jobs

Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO) (TRI.N) said it would suspend its early release of the widely watched Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment data to a small group of clients. The arrangement is the subject of a probe by New York

CONFIRMED: The Chinese growth story is fading rapidly. Last night, China whiffed on both export and import data, driving home the fact that as slow as people think things are getting, it might be even worse. Markets are now going down after initially