MISH Chalk up a rare victory for the little guy (and the nation itself). The Bill To Audit Federal Reserve Passes Key Hurdle In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon...

Zero Hedge After yesterday’s debacle for the Fed, could even more grey clouds be gathering for the Chairman? As readers will recall Alan Grayson recently presented several questions, the response to which would serve as a gating factor to Bernanke’s reconfirmation. Alas, that initiative never appeared to get much traction. In fact upon questioning...

John Carney Business Insider Bank of America wants to quickly end the ongoing embarrassment over its inability to settle internal disputes and pick a sucessor to chief executive Ken Lewis. So it’s aiming to make a decision on its next CEO as early as Sunday, Charlie Gasparino reports. Unfortunately, Bank of America is such a mess this may just...

CalculatedRisk From the BLS: Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases, 13 states registered rate decreases, and 8 states had no rate change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the year, jobless rates increased in...

John Carney of Business Insider Lloyd Blankfein delivered a presentation about Goldman Sachs last week in which he explained what Goldman Sachs is and what its plans for expansion are. His comments were made at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch banking and financial services conference in New York City. The presentation basically made three points: Goldman,...

There is a fascinating cycle at work. If this cycle remains in effect, we could be looking at the beginning of a turn-down for this index. Click on the chart to view the video

It may surprise you as to which indices have had the most comeback from the lows seen in March. In today’s video we take a close look at both the Dow and NASDAQ indices. Click on the chart to view the video

The gold market continues to steam roll ahead as it gets closer to our $1,300 target zone. As we have stated before, gold is in a fully fledged bull market and sharp pullbacks are to be expected. This is not to say the bull market is over; it is more to say that pullbacks should be looked upon as opportunities to add to or initiate new positions. Click...

Zero Hedge The pressure on both Geithner and Bernanke is finally reaching a crescendo. Fixing the US economy would start with the departure of Geithner (forced or otherwise) and the full audit of the Fed. Everything else is smoke and overleveraged, uncollateralized mirrors (perfectly acceptable in the Fed’s discount window). An interview by Dylan...

Wells Fargo joined a long list of banks that will return money to clients whose funds were frozen in the auction-rate-securities market. The $1.4 billion settlement comes after “more than a dozen” other such settlements totalling $61 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported.  Companies previously settling include Bank of America, Citigroup,...

By Doug Hornig, Senior Editor, Casey Research “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” said Blanche DuBois, in the final words of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Well, don’t we all. Many citizens probably still cling to the old saw that public debt doesn’t matter because “we owe it to ourselves.” Wrong. Debt always matters....

So far this week has been generous with our commodity ETFs moving higher, other than natural gas which is clearly in a bear market. Each of the commodity ETF trading charts below is at a different stage and it will be interesting to see how things unfold in the coming weeks. Trading ETFs is very rewarding when done properly and using multiple time frames...

CalculatedRisk This is a recurring theme: a bank fails, the Inspector General reviews the failure and discovers that the field examiners saw problems starting around 2002, and … nothing happened for years. We saw this with the Federal Reserve and the failure of Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast, and with the FDIC / OTS and the failure of IndyMac. Eric...

AC Investors ( click to enlarge ) DRYS traded up $0.08 on Wednesday, as the stock traded 2.5x normal daily volume. The stock is trading in a range over the past 2 months, and seems to want to move higher. Wednesday’s high of $7.30 is resistance for the next upside move. If the stock can break through this level, we should see a strong move. DRYS can...

Courtesy of Mish Yesterday Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher threw a little cold water on the V-shaped recovery madness everyone seems to be buying into these days. Please consider Fed’s Fisher: GDP Growth In Third Quarter Likely Lower Than Reported. Speaking at a conference in Tyler, Texas, Fisher said he was willing to venture that...