- Auto sales are “crawling forward,” but still remain weak, James Hamilton says. “On a seasonally adjusted basis, we’re not making any progress from December…Whatever the explanation, auto sales so far this year remain 40% below the average seen for January and February over 2005 to 2008.”
- Small, mid-cap stocks leading the rally. As confidence about the global economy wavers a bit, some investors and traders are actually turning their attention to companies heavily dependent on the US economy, Tom Petruno writes.
- S&P 500 and US Dollar index are about as negatively correlated as they’ve ever been, Michael Panzner notes. But the equity-dollar relationship typically isn’t sustainable when it hits historical extremes, meaning investors may need to look beyond the currency markets for hints about the stock market’s next move.
- “Amazon’s MP3 store hasn’t done much to weaken Apple’s grip on the digital music business,” MediaMemo blogger Peter Kafka reports. “But that doesn’t mean Apple isn’t paying attention.”
- Since there are no assurances that new regulations will prevent a future financial crisis from occurring, regulators should take the next best step and break up the nation’s biggest banks, James Kwak says. “Politically, breaking up TBTF banks is something that should on paper be able to attract a bipartisan majority.”
- A consumer finance protection agency is a great idea, but it’s a shame that a simple mandate in the original plan — compare all mortgages to plain vanilla 30-year fixed contracts — was rejected, FusionIQ CEO Barry Ritholtz says.
- Millions of homeowners haven’t benefited from lowest mortgage rates in nearly a half-century because they can’t or won’t refinance, WSJ reports.
- Auto veteran Bob Lutz plans to retire from GM after four decades in the business and a career that included executive positions with each of the big three Detroit automakers.
- “It seems like governments are doing a lot of poking, probing and investigating of large investors in the markets recently. Especially when it comes to bets being made that have major implications for governments, i.e., positions taken on currencies and government debt,” WSJ’s MarketBeat says.
- NY Gov. David Paterson finds himself in the middle of yet another scandal.
