Private-equity firms tell investors that the years following recessions offer the best opportunity to make money. This time may be different.
Prices paid in leveraged buyouts last year, at the tail of the worst financial crisis in more than seven decades, are about 25 percent higher on average than in 2001 after the dot-com bubble burst, [...]

global markets, stock market Hide

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Wednesday detailed how the U.S. central bank will begin to wean the economy off its extraordinary stimulus, even as he stressed it was not yet time to do so.

Bernanke said the Fed would likely begin tightening monetary policy by removing cash from the financial system before it turns to raise [...]

global markets, Interest rates, stimulus, US Hide

LONDON: The world faces an oil supply crunch within the next five years, British business leaders led by Virgin tycoon Richard Branson warned on Wednesday.
The rate at which oil is produced risks hitting a peak by 2015, sparking a surge in crude prices and living costs, said a report from the UK Industry Taskforce on [...]

global markets, oil Hide

Let’s play a game. I’ll remove a few words from the following piece of debt market research and you guess which country the strategist author is talking about.
“The country urgently needs a credible and enforceable austerity plan — the worry for **** investors is that, despite all the **** posturing, politicians still fail to grasp [...]

debt, global markets, greece, spain, UK Hide

BRUSSELS: The European Union, shaken by Greece’s fiscal crisis and struggling to get its new institutions into gear, hopes to relaunch itself this week as leaders mull improved, coordinated economic governance.
Europe’s post-recession economic woes, highlighted by the swelling deficits of Greece and others, will be the focus of a European Union summit on Thursday.
The meeting [...]

credit, debt, Euro Zone, global markets, greece, recession, spain, UK Hide

IQALUIT, Canada – Finance ministers from leading industrial nations wrapped up two-day talks Saturday in northern Canada by vowing to continue massive public spending to bolster a shaky global recovery.
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told a closing press conference that he and his G7 counterparts “need to continue to deliver the stimulus to which we [...]

G7, global markets, recovery, stimulus Hide

DAVOS, Switzerland : Global leaders and bankers will be looking for firm signs at the Davos forum this week of China’s determination to control the hot money pouring into its economy.
A year after China’s Premier Wen Jiabao sternly lectured the United States and other western nations at the World Economic Forum for causing the international [...]

bubble, China, credit, global markets, housing, investments, subprime Hide

Analyst says confidence is not back, investors are cashing out from equities to invest in bond markets.

PARIS – After a dismal 2008, world stockmarkets recorded a spectacular rebound in 2009 even though the economy was in crisis, but confidence had not been completely restored and there were fears for 2010.
In Frankfurt, the market ended the [...]

economic uncertainties, global markets, investments, investor confidence, stock market Hide