Week Dec 23 2011 – Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong – not taking the loss – that is what does damage to the pocketbook and to the soul” — Jesse Livermore
1. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il dies
2. Money runs from EU and China — the capital flight out of the eurozone continues, with investors turning to forex, real estate and investments overseas to protect themselves in the event of a eurozone break-up or a series of bank failures. Unsurprisingly, the trend is more pronounced in Greece, Portugal and Italy. In China, capital flowed out in November for the second month in a row – the first back-to-back decline in over a decade.
3. EU misses fundraising target— the EU announced it had raised €150B (less than €200B hoped) from member states to lend to the IMF to lend back to needy member states.
4. Greece’s Creditors Resist Push for More Losses — according to Bloomberg, Greece’s creditors are resisting IMF pressure to take bigger losses on their holdings.
5. Congress approved payroll tax cut extension — the House passed a two-month extension to the payroll tax cut after House Republicans caved into pressure to drop their opposition to the bill, which has already been passed in the Senate.
6. COF under scrutiny for improper debt-collection practices — the Wall Street Journal has shined a light on Capital One’s (COF) little-known debt-collection practices, saying the company has been accused of pursuing 15,500 “erroneous claims” to recover loans that have already been discharged in bankruptcy cases.
7. Interview with Art Cashen (UBS) Recap of 2011 & Outlook for 2012 — courtesy of CNBC.
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:
