Note: there are different measures of "shadow" inventory. CoreLogic tries to add up the number of properties that are seriously delinquent, in the foreclosure process, and already REO (lender Real Estate Owned) that are NOT currently listed for sale. Obviously if a house is listed for sale, it is already included in the "visible supply" and cannot be counted as shadow inventory. From CoreLogic: CoreLogic® Reports Shadow Inventory as of January 2012 Remains Flat

This is breaking that Prof. Honohan will seek leave from the ECB to not repay part of the promissory note worth 3.1 billion due at the end of this month. This is good news in the short run (and something Karl, Brian and I spoke at length about recently at the Oireachtas) From the piece:

It’s been awhile since we’ve published a snapshot of stock markets around the world, so on the following pages we highlight our trading range charts for the major equity indices of 20 of the largest countries by market cap. Below is a table of the 20 featured markets, sorted from best to worst based on performance since the start of 2011.   For each country, we also provide ETF tickers for investors that may be interested. Of the 20 countries shown, the US has been...

Back in mid-February we noted that there had not been a single trading day so far this year where there were more analyst upgrades than downgrades.  Shortly after, we finally did see a day where upgrades exceeded downgrades (2/23).  Even since then, however, most days have still continued to see more downgrades than upgrades.