by Kent Moors Oil prices are struggling to stabilize in the wake of what some are calling a “black swan” event. It refers to a theory popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a well-known risk analyst and statistician. A black swan is an outlier, a development that fails to follow any normal pattern. According to Taleb,…

Last week was a fairly typical Christmas holiday-split week, marked by weak volume before and after the day off, and a slight gain on par with the beginning of an average Santa Claus rally (not to mention the tepid bullishness in front of the Christmas break).  Though the trend was up more or less, take last…

The Trading Money Center New York bankers did a brilliant sales job on policymakers, central bankers, and economists that the way to stabilize the world economy was to securitize everything. This combined with what they called the “Originate and Distribute Model” would lead to the promised-land in finance.  Indeed, financial intermediation has changed dramatically over the last…

Follow the money is a good start–but what matters going forward is income, and most especially, net income and disposable income. Debt is important, money/capital flow is important, but when push comes to shove, all that matters is having net income/disposable income: to service debts, to invest, to spend. Debt can be substituted for income, but not for…