Philip Chua Business Blog

Posts Tagged ‘crisis’

GREECE’S debt crisis rattled investors again yesterday and sent markets south despite overnight gains on Wall Street.
Reassurance from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that interest rates would stay low for some time pleased investors, who sent the Dow Jones up 91.75 points, or 0.89 per cent.
But concerns over the weak United States job market and poor housing sales data outweighed the promis… more

Three years into the financial crisis, why haven’t complex derivatives been reined in?

LAYOFFS in the first nine months of last year indicate the annual total is set to be much lower than the record 29,000 reported during the Asian financial crisis, said Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong yesterday.
Official records show 18,180 workers were retrenched in the first three quarters of last year.
The annual total will be known by Friday when the Manpower Ministry is scheduled to release the… more

SINGAPORE’S warrants market took a beating last year, as risk-averse investors steered well clear of these volatile instruments amid the financial crisis.
Turnover for warrants, which had become immensely popular in recent years, fell steeply to 2005 levels.
These instruments are linked to movements of other assets, mainly stocks or stock market indexes. One attraction is that they are cheaper tha… more

(SINGAPORE) Private home prices continued their ascent in Q4 last year, climbing an estimated 7.3 per cent from the previous quarter. This sent prices for 2009 up 1.7 per cent from a year ago, defying bleak prognoses of double digit falls when the financial crisis unfolded.

Resale prices for public housing were also on their way up in Q4, rising 3.8 per cent from the previous quarter. Year-on-ye… more

There is a modest recovery underway in the American economy. The Federal Reserve can no longer avoid the looming choice on interest rates and the money supply. Since the sub-prime crisis began Chairman Bernanke has been the consistent champion of monetary easing. Under his leadership, the Federal Open Market Committee…

Stronger regulation should be the first line of defense against speculative bubbles that could send the economy into a new crisis, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Sunday.







Ben Bernanke – Economic bubble – United States – Economic – Federal Reserve System

Remember when everybody thought that markets were all-knowing? Before the financial crisis struck in late 2008, the reigning dogma in economics was the “efficient-markets hypothesis.” The economists still vigorously defending markets today sound like alcoholics denying they have a problem.







Economic – Efficient-market hypothesis – Financial crisis – Social Sciences – Math

A historic economic crisis has left Americans with plenty of things to worry about. But is inflation one of them?







Inflation – Financial crisis – Economic – Grade Inflation – Money supply

Just over 31,000 homeowners have received permanent loan modifications under the Obama administration’s mortgage relief plan, a big setback for the government’s embattled effort to stem the foreclosure crisis.







Mortgage – Foreclosure – Presidency of Barack Obama – Business – Government