Resource Listings
Financial Websites
Financial Sense Great articles, mainly for sophisticated investors (but some geared for novice investors), with daily market wrap-up. I post here frequently.
Safe Haven – Ditto above.
Minyanville – This site has some of the very best market writing of our time and several of my favorite writers. Highly sophisticated, often with heavy financial jargon.
Bloomberg.com - This is a great site for financial articles. Can be a bit overwhelming because they have lots and lots of content every day. Bloomberg.com is among the top five most-trafficked financial sites on the Web.
MarketWatch – This is where I go when I want to find out the ‘official spin’ for any particular news story. Often full of non-sequitur “noise” that will merely confuse you if you try to make sense of it. For example, this site goes overboard trying to explain why something went up or down in price, creating some truly bizarre and often humorous linkages that shouldn’t be made.
Google Finance – In their own words, “Google Finance offers a broad range of information about stocks, mutual funds, public and private companies. In addition, Google Finance offers interactive charts, news, and fundamental data.”
Blogs of Choice
Mish's Economic Analysis – Great, but very sophisticated, blog of current market events, plus some original analysis that is really very good. Updated frequently.
The Housing Bubble 2 – This is where I tracked (and continue to track) the unfolding housing crisis over the past 3 years. Ben Jones' blog; great comment participation by his audience; updated daily.
Calculated Risk – Great financial blog, data rich (heavy?), often cited in the mainstream press. Excellent place to follow housing and mortgage data, in particular.
RGE Monitor – “RGE Monitor's experienced analysts identify the essential global economic and political issues, then provide links to the most important writings from all sides -- so you can stay ahead of the curve with fresh, unbiased perspectives on a broad range of essential topics.”
Clusterf*ck Nation– Jim Kunstler’s blog. Updated each Monday morning.
Government Data Sites
Debt to the Penny - The current US federal debt level. Does not include liabilities, only straight debt. This is the number that applies to the so-called ‘debt-ceiling.’
Census Bureau Home Page – Housing and income data, both historical and current, can be found here. Like nearly all government websites, this one makes it harder than necessary to find what you are looking for.
OFHEO Home Page – “Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.” There is only one reason to go here, and that’s to find out the ‘official’ government view of housing price advances and declines. The OFHEO estimates of housing declines are barely a third of private estimates, so take this all with a grain of salt.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) – This is ‘ground zero’ for things economic that come from the federal government. GDP, Personal Income, Corporate Profits, and Current Receipts and Expenditures are the biggies you’ll find here.
Dept. of Labor – Consumer Price Index (CPI), employment, unemployment, earnings, and productivity are all here.
CES Net Birth/Death Model – This is a direct link to the infamous “Birth-Death Model,” which mysteriously adds and subtracts, but mainly adds, jobs to the total reported each month.
Dept. of the Treasury (fms) – A collection of useful links and other Treasury related information. A good place to start when looking for Treasury data.
Treasury TIC Report - Here we can find out how many of our bonds/assets foreigners have been buying, compared to selling. Very important information if you are concerned about the dollar’s international value, because we need to have foreigners buy at least $2 billion of our debt every day to finance our excess import consumption.
Treasury - TIC Foreign holdings - Here we get the TIC breakdown by country. Pretty interesting to see who’s been buying and who’s been selling.
US Econ Calendar Week-at-a-Glance Charts
StockCharts.com – Free charting service for all stock symbols and most indexes including the dollar.
Yahoo! Finance (Main page)
Yahoo! Finance - Major World Indices
Bloomberg Rates & Bonds - Current bond yields and prices. Treasuries and Munis.
Advances & Declines – A summary of stock movement during the day, expressed in terms of how how many went up in price (advanced) vs. went down in price (declined).
S&P 500 Fair Value - The measure of the difference between where the cash S&P market and the futures for the S&P are trading.
TED spread – “Treasury-Euro Dollar” is an indicator that tells how much stress is in the banking system. The higher the number, the greater the stress. A very good coincidence indicator for market declines and volatility. I keep a pretty close eye on this.
Real-Time Forex Quotes – A live quote feed for all major currencies, and gold and silver.
The Slosh Report – How much money has the Fed injected into the banking system? Unfortunately, that is very tricky to find out, because the Fed does not report it that way. Fortunately, this clever fellow has automated the reading and storing of that data so we can all see it. Updated daily.
Earnings Dates for Any Company
MBA Purchase Applications – Are mortgage purchase applications going up or down? Find out here.
Commodity Charts & Quotes - Free source of the most common commodity charts. Very easy to use. Point and click; common names, not symbols. This is where I usually get all the commodity graphs that I display in the seminar.
Commodities Charts CCI “Quotes, charts, and news for the futures, commodities, options, and foreign exchange markets.”
Oil Futures Quotes - The full string to 2011.
Pre-Market Futures Coverage of pre-market trading, including futures information for the S&P, Nasdaq, and NYSE.
Now and Futures – These guys have recreated the now defunct M3 measure with high accuracy so that we can continue to see how much money, in total, is being created. Sweet.
Financial Report of the United States Current Report of the US. Open this .PDF file to discover how many trillions of dollars the true deficit for the year actually was.
Current Melt Value of U.S. Coins Site “Welcome to Coinflation. This site measures the current pure metal value or melt values of U.S. circulating (the penny included) and pre-1965 silver coins. Articles on coin melting also available.”
Chat boards:
Prudent Bear Chat – A classic “bear board.”
IndexCalls.com – Requires free registration. The most up-to-date and savvy investors and observers out there. Lots of jargon, and many posters have been there for years and know each other quite well. Daily thread captures the market action and includes lots of on- and off-topic links to news items.
Peak Oil
ASPO-Daily Peak Oil News “ASPO-USA is a nonpartisan, proactive effort to encourage prudent energy management, constructive community transformation, and cooperative initiatives during an era of depleting petroleum resources.”
ASPO-Weekly Peak Oil Review - Great weekly summary of what’s transpired in the field of Peak Oil.
The Oil Drum – The best Peak Oil community board out there. Stellar posters; long history; great site. Very savvy individuals, and great articles and other resources. Kind of ‘tech heavy,’ but if you like understanding the data, which you must if you are going to understand oil issues, then this site is a must.
