Senator Kaufman’s call to the SEC

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 24, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments In a rare recent demonstration of legislative impetus toward increased regulatory oversight of markets Senator Kaufman of Delaware has sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking them to review all forms of stock-market structure. In particular his request for a review focuses on the enormous amount of trades that happen as part of “high-frequency trading” and that...
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Existing home sales up BIG

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 21, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments In July sales of existing homes (i.e. not newly constructed homes) rose 7.2%. That is their highest level in almost 24 months. This is the second consecutive month of positive sales figures. Obviously one of the reasons that home sales are finally happening again is because prices have finally adjusted to market realities. That’s a convoluted way of saying that owners of homes finally got...
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Comments by Fed chairman Bernanke

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 21, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Happy Friday everyone, At the annual powerful persons confab in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Bernanke, said that “economic activity appears to be leveling out in the United States and abroad. He also said that it was likely that there would be a return to growth in the near term. Most importantly, he said that the economic recovery “is likely to be...
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Article about the SEC’s weaknesses

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 20, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Good morning everyone – I hope that this message finds you well! The Wall Street Journal has a detailed piece about the Securities and Exchange Commission this morning. The gist of the article is that the SEC is too lawyerly in its approach to regulation. It also lacks a sophisticated ability to conduct its own analyses of markets and trading strategies. Take for example: “…by...
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Hating no-news moves

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 18, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments I officially hate financial market moves on no-news. Yes, yes, everyone said that today’s correction was due to overseas market corrections that were in response to big moves in currencies. OK, so what caused the big move in currencies? There was no news. It’s much more likely that the financial market moves were triggered by computer trading programs and certain algorithmic...
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National recessions ending worldwide

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 17, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Good morning everyone. I hope that your weekends were all excellent. Various nations’ recessions ended in the second quarter. Among the significant countries whose economies returned to growth are: France Germany Japan South Korea Singapore I am especially encouraged by the first three countries (France, Germany, Japan) and their recessions ending. Remember that way back in the fall I said...
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Take a breather

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Aug 14, 2009 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 1 comment The financial markets have had several sizable selloffs in the last week. Thank goodness. Because the second quarter earnings season is essentially over, the emphasis now shifts from responding to the economic-wide insights provided by businesses in their earnings reports, to raw speculation and response to actual economic news. In other words, there is less overall news and more speculation. In...
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