My recent live interview with Charles Kirk generated quite a few questions. A number of them we were able to address during the chat, but many went unanswered.

Top 10 economic events next week:

1. EUR- Euro-zone Manufacturing and Services PMI- Purchasing Managers Indexes, Mon., Aug. 23, 4:00 am, ET.

2. USD- U.S. Existing Home Sales, Tues., Aug. 24, 10:00 am, ET.
3. JPY- Japan Trade Balance, Tues., Aug. 24, 7:50 pm, ET.

4. EUR- Germany IFO Institute Business Climate and Expectations Index, Wed., Aug. 25, 4:00 am, ET.

5. USD- U.S. Durable Goods Orders, Wed., Aug. 25, 8:30 am, ET.

6. USD- U.S. New Home Sales, Wed., Aug. 25, 10:00 am, ET.

Intel agreed to pay a 60% premium for a company with it has little or no synergies. The fact that Intel has decided not integrate McAfee into its operations also raises questions about the deal and the price tag.  Deals motivated by a desire to increase revenue or to purchase intellectual property or technology were among the worse performing deals. The bad news for Intel’s investors its deal for McAfee fits in both categories.

WSJ

Our suspicions have been confirmed — the recession never ended. Macroeconomic Advisers produces a monthly U.S. real GDP series and it shows that the peak was in April, as we expected, with both May and June down 0.4% in the worst back-to-back performance since the economy was crying Uncle! back in the depths of despair in September-October 2008. The quarterly data show that Q2 stands at a +1.1% annual rate (so look for a steep downward revision for last quarter) and the “build in” for Q3 is -1.5% at an annual rate.