John Carney of ClusterStock In another blow to the earning power of banks, the government is preparing to revise higher education financing in a way that would deny them billions in fees. Currently, banks receive fees from the governent for acting as middlemen for loans to low- and middle-income students. Under the new plan, the governent would...

The Market Ticker As I pointed out on March 17th, the housing “tax credit” has run out of gas – and today’s existing home sales numbers prove it: Sales of existing homes have thus fallen three consecutive months, a reversal after having risen steadily through the fall in response to a federal subsidy for first-time home buyers....

Courtesy of JESSE’S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN Does this imply that the comparable LIBOR is lower than US Treasuries? If so, yikes (I think). Purely technical, the result of govenment mandates for insurance companies and pension funds to match duration obligations, and some slightly more exotic hedging from the denizens of the trading desks? Some also...

Tim Iacono As usual, when the gold price languishes for a while, it tends to get bashed by those who don’t understand it and think that, surely, after ten years and a 300+ percent gain, there can’t be even higher prices in store. But, as shown below in the Kitco Gold Index, that feeling is a distinctly American one recently as new highs...

Day Trading Spot Gold Futures is a touchy subject among traders. You either hate it and think it cannot be day traded for consistent gains or your love it finding its movements very accurate. As most of you know I love trading gold. I get my fair share of emails from individuals who think trading gold is a complete scam because of manipulation and...

ING asked investors who they trust and where they get their investing advice. Apparently people trust themselves a lot, but then after that it’s blogs and financial websites. Brokers: not so much. (via Abnormal Returns) Chart Courtesy of Business insider

Submitted by Tyler Durden The chart below shows all you need to know about the market participation in the most recent rally. A simple calculation indicates that as algos take the Dow higher by about 100 points a day, we are only 251 days away from Dow 36,000. But why stop there: it is now obvious that Bernanke will not stop until 2 shares of total...

The Mess That Greenspan Made The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes fell 0.6 percent in February after a drop of more than 7 percent in January and sales are now at their lowest level in eight months. It’s probably best not to make too much of the winter data for existing home sales because it is a very...

T3Live Citi has obviously been beaten down over the last couple of years, and is no longer a fast moving stock. Still, it looks to be forming a bullish consolidation and should see momentum come in to the upside. We are going to buy through 4.10, with stops at 3.80, with targets at 5 then 5.50. These are large percentage price moves in such a small...

Joe Weisenthal of Clusterstock Tim Geithner is set to deliver unwelcome to news to those who play in the public Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) casino. Bloomberg: “Private gains can no longer be supported by the umbrella of public protection, capital standards must be higher and excessive risk-taking must be appropriately restrained,”...

Courtesy of Mish Inquiring minds are watching an interview with Gerald Celente who warns about the pending crash of 2010. Celente: ”The crash of 2010 is going to happen as we are forecasting. All the stimulus money from around the world is drying up and what are they going to do for an encore? We need a productive capacity. You can’t...

From Waverly Advisors: February CPI data released this morning showed that prices jumped by a full percentage point for the month in Hong Kong over the holiday month, more than anticipated.  On a year-over-year basis Consumer Prices registered at 2.8%  vs. consensus 2.1%.   meanwhile aggregate food prices increased by 2.5% Y/Y during the month. ...

Given that the health care bill is about to be signed into law, the long hard slogging now all but done, attention turns to the financial reform legislation that, based on this exchange between Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Evan Bayh (D-IN), should be a whole lot friendlier. Of course, the word “friendlier” in Washington is very much...

Zero Hedge David Rosenberg points out two important observations that go to the heart of what has been propping up the market for so long – cheap, abundant liquidity. As Rosie shows, both Money Of Zero Maturity (MZM) and M2 have now officially rolled over: “The liquidity backdrop is becoming less alluring — MZM has declined YoY for...

Submitted by Nic Lenoir Of ICAP Gold is back on support here. On the 60-minute chart we are right on the neckline og a H&S pattern, and we see and the daily chart that despite a slight excess, we are roughly holding the support of the bullish channel. If we break here we should go down to test 1,090/1,075 which is the key support here below....