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Republished from Dr. Ed Yardeni’s blog: “Dr. Ed’s Blog”
The housing industry remains in a depression. The sum of existing and new single-family home sales bottomed last year at 4.1 million units (saar). This year, it has been fluctuating around 5.3 million units. That’s down from a record high of 8.5 million units during July 2005. It matches the pace of sales during the mid-1990s, just before the housing bubble.

Housing activity is likely to remain ...

Wall Street Journal
By TOM LAURICELLA And EMESE BARTHA

LONDON—Italy’s latest bond auction on Tuesday drew more buyers than anticipated, but it didn’t enable the debt-laden country to avoid paying euro-era record-high yields to get the deal done.

The auction of up to €8 billion ($10.6 billion) in bonds over a range of maturities saw Italy paying yields of 7.89% on three-year bonds and 7.56% on 10-year paper. Despite the record yields, the auction attracted enough demand—driven mainly ...

Republished from “Eyes Not Sold: A Journal of Opinion,” by John Borden

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2011

So much has been written and opined upon on this issue that this blog has been stymied from any comment. So here’s some recognition of the issue from this perspective, perhaps dated or already commented on by others.

Overall, this seems to be an anarchist movement or at times a libertarian movement that is spontaneous and driven by real but uncoordinated issues. It’s real for certain and ...

Volcker Rule May Adversely Impact Munis
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
The Bond Buyer
By Robert Slavin

Some market participants are concerned that the current version of the Volcker Rule would hurt the municipal bond market.

Named after Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, the rule would restrict federal insured banks’ ability to trade for their own benefit.

The rule comes in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, when highly leveraged banking institutions lost huge sums on proprietary investments. But muni market ...

Corporate Bond Volatility Falls Below Treasuries: Credit Markets
Bloomberg – Nov. 14, 2011 – By Tim Gatts

Investment-grade company debt is proving a haven for bondholders whipsawed by swings in Treasuries as Europe’s debt crisis rattles credit markets.

Corporate bonds are the least volatile relative to Treasuries since at least 2002, based on price movements in exchange-traded funds from Barclays Plc. The gap expanded to 4.53 percentage points as of Nov. 11. As recently as seven weeks ago, the 30-day historical volatility ...

11/17/2011 7:30 PM ET

EFE News Service / BAS / EFE Ingles

ECB intervention eases pressure on Spanish bonds

Released : Thursday, November 17, 2011 7:30 PM

Madrid, Nov 17 (EFE).- Intervention by the European Central Bank eased market pressure on Spanish debt, which ended 460 basis points above benchmark German bonds Thursday after approaching the 500 bps level.

Market jitters also forced the Spanish Treasury to pay an average yield of almost 7 percent – the highest in 14 years – to sell some ...