Quantitative Easing

Alpari Market analyst Craig Erlam says that even though it seems like most people want to see quantitative easing from the European Central Bank, it probably won’t happen. He was recently a guest on Benzinga’s #PreMarket Prep to explain the problem with the ECB trying quantitative...

After five years of near-zero interest rate policy and several rounds of quantitative easing (QE), a sell-off in junk bonds is gaining momentum. Capital inflows into junk bond portfolios and high-yield ETFs were very robust until the Federal Reserve began its QE tapering program. With QE3...

The Federal Reserve is going to continue to print money until the next crisis, according to Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff. Schiff was recently a guest on Benzinga’s #PreMarket Prep, where he explained why the Fed is merely providing air for financial bubbles in stocks and real...

Aptly-named financial bubbles can disappear just as quickly as they form. Seabreeze Partners Management Inc. President Doug Kass was a special guest on Benzinga's #PreMarket Prep, and he talked about where he thinks the biggest bubbles are right now. Depending on your point of view, Kass said,...

On Sunday night, author Michael Lewis shocked the world on the 60 Minutes television program, by announcing that the market is “rigged." Lewis' premise, that High Frequency Trading has created an unlevel playing field for investors, has some merit. However, only Predatory High Frequency...

If you keep track of the markets during the average day, it is hard not to get sucked into the vortex of noise. The media and pundits seem at times to act almost as shills and casino hosts encouraging players to pick up the action and move the money around looking for a win. The constant...

The CurrencyShares Australian Dollar Trust (NYSE: FXA), the ETF proxy for the Australian dollar, has shown itself to be sensitive to chatter about Federal Reserve Tapering of quantitative easing. Since May 20, about the time tapering talk really started, FXA is off nearly seven percent. That...

In its latest interest rate statement, the Federal Reserve kept rates on hold as expected and kept its bond-buying program at $85 billion per month. The Fed made no indication of tapering at all in its statement. Modest Recovery The Fed noted that the economy expanded at a modest pace in the first...

Vodafone Group (NASDAQ: VOD) would seriously consider any offer for its 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, according to Vodafone CEO, Gerard Kleisterlee, and reported by Reuters Tuesday. The most likely offer would come from Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) which owns the other 55 percent...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set to speak in each of the next two days in his semi-annual Congressional testimony. He will spend Wednesday speaking in front of the House Financial Services Committee while Thursday he will testify in front of the Senate Banking Committee, with both...

Rising bond yields? Two-year highs in mortgage rates? Stocks seemingly schizophrenic to any and all Fed speak? Forget it all, as Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that "the overall message is accommodation." What Was So Different? Honestly, nothing. The only real difference was that this time, it was...

While most Americans were eating hot dogs and celebrating the birth date of the United States, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank took unprecedented steps in launching forward guidance in their interest rate decisions. The move sent shares higher and the pound and the euro...

Minneapolis Fed President Naryana Kocherlakota issued a statement unexpectedly Monday, announcing his views that recent Fed communications have not been clear enough. He fully supports continued easing and argued that the FOMC has not done enough to quell rate hike fears. Asset Purchases...

From private sector forecasts to the IMF, the Fed sees a rosier economy than most which could mean that tapering fears are overdone and that stimulative policies are going nowhere anytime soon. Markets have plunged in the face of the Federal Reserve's latest statement, in which the Federal Open...

Let’s be honest. Normally, the average stock trader isn’t much concerned with what’s going on with the yen or Japan for that matter. There are plenty of domestic stocks that don’t require you to have in-depth knowledge of a country that sits on the other side of the world but there might be an...