Feldstein: NYC housing market “priced in euros and pesos”

  Asked if weakness in the New York real estate market – which has been fairly resilient so far – could signal a bottom for the battered U.S. housing market, the head of the influential National Bureau of Economic Research said : 

 ”No, no no! The New York real estate market is priced in euros and pesos,” Martin Feldstein said,  referring to overseas investors snapping up property in the Big Apple which for them works out as a relative bargain because of the weak dollar.

A better indicator to determine whether the worst is over,  he added, would be house prices starting to rise nationwide.  Feldstein was speaking at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York.

 To hear what he had to say, please click here

If you know a trader, buy him a drink

 ”You know, I’ve lost more money in smaller positions and made more money in smaller positions in the last year than I have in 12 because of the spikes. Volatility has been unbelievable,” Firas Askari, head of foreign exchange trading at BMO Capital Markets, said at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit.

With that in mind, ”If you know a trader, buy him a drink!” he said. 

Click here for the sound clip. 

Abby Joseph Cohen sees no black hole in U.S. economy

“I think it’s fair to say it will not be as deep a recession, if  it is a recession, as many people had feared not that long ago.  There certainly is not a black hole developing in the U.S. economy,” Cohen told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York.

To hear what Cohen, one of Wall Street’s most influential strategists, had to say about the economy,  please click here.

 Cohen also said she thought the technology and energy sectors were likely to be strong in the intermediate to long-term.  To hear her view on sectors, please click here.

Henry Kaufman “dismayed” by McCain’s economic flippancy

Republican presidential candidate John McCain didn’t leave the best impression on Dr. Doom.

“I was a little bit dismayed when Senator McCain said flippantly that he does not know too much about economics but carries Alan Greenspan’s book under his arm. That does not encourage me,” Henry Kaufman, president of financial consulting firm Henry Kaufman & Company told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit.

For a sound clip, please click here.

Is a triple-A a triple-A a triple-A?

   Credit ratings agencies have been under fire from investors for giving the highest ratings for what turned out to be risky assets.     But Standard & Poor’s President Deven Sharma told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit investors just didn’t really understand what a triple-A rating meant.     “It’s a question a lot of people ask: Is a triple-A a triple-A a triple-A?” Sharma said. “We reflected on it and recognised one of the things we didn’t explain to investors as much as we should have done is what comparability of ratings really  means.”     To listen to what he had to say, please click here

Survival, yes, but what about the money?

Veteran Wall Street banking analyst Richard Bove sees Lehman Brothers surviving – but he doesn’t think they’ll be making a lot of money.    There’s just not a lot of business there at the moment for brokers like Lehman, he told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York.     To listen to a clip of what Bove had to say, please click here