Month: June 2012

Political Risk Scores – Top and Bottom 10 Riskiest Countries

Political risk evaluates a range of political factors relating to political stability and effectiveness that could affect a country’s ability and/or commitment to service its debt obligations and/or cause turbulence in the foreign-exchange market. This rating informs sovereign, currency and banking sector risks.

As of 5/31/12

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Germany – Economic Conditions are Sliding (CHARTS)

Aside from the fact that Egan Jones downgrading Germany this week, there are internal problems with the German economy that building. Factory orders are plunging, confidence is dropping and it is clear that the EuroZone woes are becoming a real problem for Germany.

Notice the slope of factory orders over the...

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Correlations – Who Controls The Markets?

In times with low volume flows and directional trends that continue, we often see that the correlations of the Index to individual stocks rise. In other words, there is more focus on the index itself than on stock picking.

Sometimes this is because there is a preference to hedge out...

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Durable Good Orders – Better but Previous Revised Down

Durable goods rose more than expected. Analysts were looking for a 0.5% and the 1.1% was a decent surprise. Some of that was due to the noisy nature of month to month numbers and the fact that last month was revised down from +0.2% to -.2%. So, on the whole,...

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