Research Zeitgeist: Top Posts and Hot Topics
Popular posts on Research Recap this week touched on several hot topics, as the threat of a financial meltdown receded, at least for now.
The latest salvo in the debate over ethanol as an alternative fuel was fired by the American Coalition for Ethanol in Lobby Says Ethanol Helping Reduce Gasoline Costs. But the announcement this week of an 8% drop in US prospective corn plantings is not good news for ethanol producers dependent on corn as feedstock.
Many hedge funds are having a tough go of it these days, and Penn State’s interesting paper, The Reasons Behind Declines In Hedge Fund Alpha, finds that size does matter, but not in a good way.
And the outlook for airlines has not gotten any better since our popular
Research Roundup: US Airline Industry. It’s looking like more heads will roll as Congress sinks its teeth into the issue of airline safety.
Sovereign Wealth Funds have plenty of cash, as documented by International Financial Services London in Sovereign Wealth Funds Assets up 18% in 2007. The challenge they face now is what to do with it, as recent bets on Western banks have proved to be problematic to say the least. A paper from Oklahoma University finds that a decline in a target company’s stock price is not unusual after an SWF investment. Another paper from the same source says financial bloggers appear to have an impact on stock prices, and not just a temporary boost.
Tower Group sees foresees the end of television as we know it in
“A-la-carte” Cable TV Pricing Would Bring “Economic Ruin”, arguing such a move by the FCC would be bad for everybody.
And just to show that we havent forgotten about the credit crisis, CreditSights’ interesting post Warning Signs Seen in Rising Credit Card Delinquencies
continued to draw interest.
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