April 2013
35 posts
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U.S. stocks lose most in 5 months on China -... →
Ugly day in risk markets with Dow S&P500 and Nasdaq finishing at the lows. Lets see how the next few days unfold. Will the bulls be able to circle the wagons at the 50-day moving average (S&P 500: 1,540)?
Two dead after Boston Marathon blasts: police -... →
My prayers go out to the injured and deceased. God bless them.
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American Dream Eludes With Student Debt Burden:... →
Nichter, 35, who’s paying $1,500 a month on loans for degrees from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, is part of the most debt-laden generation to emerge from college. Two- thirds of student loans are held by people under the age of 40, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, blocking millions of them from taking advantage of the most affordablehousing market on record. The number...
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Japan shocks China on Senkakus | The Australian →
University of Sydney associate professor John Lee said it was a smart move from Taiwan and Japan that would increase pressure on China to set aside some of its territorial disputes and reach commercial resolutions to them.
“The fact that Taiwan has come to a commercial compromise without settling the sovereignty issue is precisely what the rest of the region and the US has been urging China...
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N Korea May Be Able to Make Nuclear Missiles, U.S.... →
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has reported that North Korea now has some nuclear weapons small enough to be delivered by its ballistic missiles.
The DIA cautioned in a classified report last month that it has only “moderate confidence” in that finding, which also said that the reliability of North Korea’s missiles “will be low.” — Bloomberg
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Singapore Keeps Currency Gain as Inflation... →
[Singapore] Gross domestic product shrank an annualized 1.4 percent in the three months ended March 31 from the previous quarter, when it climbed 3.3 percent, the Trade Ministry said today. The median of 10 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was for 1.7 percent expansion.
Inflation Quickening
A report last month showed prices climbed 4.9 percent in February from a year earlier, the fastest...
China Rebound at Risk as Xi Curbs Officials’... →
“The anti-corruption action by Xi is creating unprecedented phenomena, including an absolute fall in high-end restaurant sales,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong, who previously worked for the European Central Bank. “It’s certainly a big factor dragging down short-term growth.” — Bloomberg
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Stock rally pushes S&P intraday record higher -... →
Markets keep racing higher despite global macro headwinds. Given a new high, it’s not a bears market….more wait and see (few shorts) and invest a little capital to the upside.
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Fed minutes show clear divisions over QE duration... →
China Exports Miss Forecasts as ‘Absurd’ Data... →
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Slovenia, Spain Warned of Excessive Economy... →
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Obama Proposes $3.77 Trillion Budget to Revive... →
California’s Fracking Bonanza May Fall Short of... →
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Goldman Sachs sees cyclical turnaround by year end... →
Goldman expects a “relatively flat equity market” in the second quarter followed by a rise in the S&P 500 to a 1,625 by year-end led by cyclicals. — Marketwatch
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Does Obama want to push granny off a cliff? -... →
The current CPI measures the cost of a fixed market basket of goods and services purchased regularly by a typical working household. By contrast, the chained CPI alters the weights of the items in the index to reflect changes in consumers’ buying patterns as relative prices change.
For example, if the price of meat goes up one month and the price of fish goes down, people will buy less meat and...
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China Tightening Pressure Eases With March... →
Colombia Cites Weak Consumer Demand in March Rate... →
Colombia has cut interest rates seven times since June to the lowest among major Latin American economies, as growth cooled and the inflation rate fell to a six-decade low. The minutes leave the door open to further cuts if the central bank judge them to be necessary, said Alejandro Reyes, head analyst at Ultrabursatiles SA brokerage. — Bloomberg
Mexico’s new president: Working through a reform... →
Behind these reforms lies a “Pact for Mexico” struck between the PRI and the two main opposition parties in December. The Pact unites Mexico’s political parties against the unelected interests that have long defied them. As he signed the Pact on behalf of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Jesús Zambrano declared that politicians were “outraged that de facto powers of all...
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Weekly Bull/Bear Recap: Apr. 1-5, 2013
This objective report concisely summarizes important macro events over the past week. It is not geared to push an agenda. Impartiality is necessary to avoid costly psychological traps, which all investors are prone to, such as confirmation, conservatism, and endowment biases.
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U.S. Stock Futures Plunge as Job Data Trail... →
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Draghi Considers Plan B as Sentiment Dims Post... →
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is under pressure to reveal Plan B.
A botched attempt to rescue Cyprus last month sent bank shares tumbling across the euro area and rattled confidence in policy makers’ ability to tame the sovereign debt crisis. With doubts growing about Draghi’s forecast for a second-half economic recovery, he’s considering his options.
They range from an...
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Merkel’s Italian Holiday Fans Europe’s North-South... →
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s vacation in Italy threatened to inflame Europe’s north-south tensions after she was snapped in a bathing suit by paparazzi and challenged by a regional leader to heed the economic woes around her.
Merkel’s deputy spokesman, Georg Streiter, had to respond to reporters’ questions in Berlin yesterday about whether the chancellor had witnessed “anti-German” sentiment...
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Hollande Economic Push Threatened by Minister... →
President Francois Hollande’s effort to ask the French to tighten their belts was dealt a blow this week after the minister he’d charged with fighting tax evasion admitted to a secret overseas bank account.
Jerome Cahuzac, who resigned as Hollande’s budget minister two weeks ago, said on April 2 that he was caught in a “spiral of lies” about the 600,000 euros ($770,000) he held in an offshore...
Fed's Williams: May start tapering QE this summer... →
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)— The Federal Reserve could start tapering its $85 billion -a-month asset purchase plan by the summer, said John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on Wednesday. The central bank has said it would continue the purchase program until it sees substantial improvement in the labor market. “Assuming my economic forecast holds true, I...
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Asia Soaring Wages Stoke Inflation as Factory... →
Koda Ltd (KODA). Executive Director Ernie Koh has a message for clients in 50 countries who complain about the Singapore-based furniture maker’s first price increase in two years: Take it or leave it.
Koda’s factories in China, Malaysia and Vietnam are battling rising costs as governments in Asia increase minimum wages to curb discontent over a widening wealth gap. While weak global growth and...
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U.S. Stocks Advance Amid Factory Orders, Cyprus... →
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Pope Breaks From Tradition - WSJ.com →
The Casal del Marmo, Rome’s juvenile detention center, was a highly unusual venue for the ceremony, and Pope Francis’s choice of the location was part of his drive to recast the papacy in a humbler light. Traditionally, popes have performed the ceremony at a Rome basilica, washing the feet of Christian men.
Papal gestures are carefully studied for signs of how a pope plans to shift...
Germany Gains Momentum as Europe's South Struggles... →
Yet with little evidence that Berlin’s prescription for the south—massive spending cuts to reduce countries’ dependence on foreign borrowing—is bearing fruit, Europeans are asking what Germany’s endgame is…
With Germany increasingly reliant on the world’s emerging markets—from China to Brazil and India—to fuel its export engine, some Europeans worry that...
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Lines Form as Cyprus Banks Reopen - WSJ.com →
“The media were waiting for Cypriots smashing windows of banks. Their dreams were not fulfilled—Cypriots are decent people,” said one man of roughly retirement age, who stood outside a Bank of Cyprus branch holding a leaflet that read: “Why must international media be so greedy of horror scenarios?!…Solidarity with the people of Cyprus, NOT their banks.”
Some Cypriots said...
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French President Lashes Out at Austerity - WSJ.com →
March 2013
58 posts
And Scene: Big Cypriot Depositors Facing Complete... →
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5D07c0dJuQ&feature=youtu.be
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Weekly Bull/Bear Recap: Mar. 25-29, 2013
This objective report concisely summarizes important macro events over the past week. It is not geared to push an agenda. Impartiality is necessary to avoid costly psychological traps, which all investors are prone to, such as confirmation, conservatism, and endowment biases.
...
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Kim Prepares Rockets as Hagel Denounces N. Korea... →
Kim Jong Un ordered North Korean rocket forces on standby to strike the U.S. and South Korea as Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel denounced the totalitarian state’s “provocative actions and belligerent tone.”
Kim met with his military leaders today and ordered the rocket preparations after two U.S. B-2 stealth bombers flew over South Korea yesterday in a show of deterrence. Hagel condemnedNorth...
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S. Korean Output Unexpectedly Falls as Growth... →
South Korea’s industrial production unexpectedly fell in February, signaling that a recovery in Asia’s fourth-largest economy may be slower than expected as a weaker yen threatens exports. — Bloomberg
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Despite continually rising US equity indexes, Asian indices aren’t buying it. Furthermore copper continues to sink. Has the US decoupled from the global...
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Cyprus Averts Panic Withdrawals as Banks Open With... →
“We expected much more people,” said Argyros Eraclides, manager of a Bank of Cyprus Plc branch in the Stavrou area of Nicosia. “Fortunately there are only some people who needed cash for the day, but customers reacted fantastically. We expected some people to be more aggravated.” — Bloomberg
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Here’s a bullish spin to Cyprus banks reopening
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Long Lines as Banks Reopen in Cyprus After Freeze... →
But the prevailing view in Cyprus is that the leaders of the European currency project have mainly sought to quarantine a potential Cypriot financial contagion by limiting it to a disease whose only real victims will be Cyprus and its bank depositors.
For Mr. Sofroniou, the bailout terms show that the European Union is driven by the same merciless forces now playing out in the long concrete...
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Madoff points fingers at the banks on Wall St,... →
Dollar gains as Italy ‘mess’ puts euro below $1.28... →
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — The U.S. dollar climbed against most major rivals on Wednesday, with the euro tumbling below $1.28 for the first time since November on renewed political turmoil in Italy. — Marketwatch
Argentina Loses Bid for Full-Court Rehearing on... →
Argentina’s request that the full federal appeals court in New York reconsider a ruling by a three-judge panel was denied in a case involving $1.3 billion in defaulted bonds.
Argentina defaulted on a record $95 billion in debt in 2001. Holders of about 91 percent of the bonds agreed to take new exchange bonds in 2005 and 2010, at a deep discount. The country claims that a ruling forcing it to...
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BRICS Nations Plan New Bank to Bypass World Bank,... →
The biggest emerging markets are uniting to tackle under-development and currency volatility with plans to set up institutions that encroach on the roles of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
The leaders of the so-called BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — are set to approve the establishment of a new development bank during an annual summit...
Spanish Daily El Pais Compares Angela Merkel To... →
MADRID - After publishing a column comparing German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Adolf Hitler, Spanish daily El Pais has now retracted the piece and apologized following an outcry from Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
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Markets tumble on fear Cyprus deal is new template... →
Confidence is fickle and continued pessimism risks precipitating bank runs in Spain and Greece.
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Watch
Cyprus, lenders agree bailout deal: reports -... →
Markets are higher. Thus far it seems a landmine has been avoided. However, the longer-term trend of the ability of the Eurozone to stay intact continues to worsen. Political risk has only increased over the past 4 years without any long lasting solution to the problem of structurally different economies operating under the same monetary system.
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South Korea Escalates Concern With Japan Policies... →
South Korea’s newly-appointed finance minister, Hyun Oh Seok, revived his nation’s concerns over weakness in the yen and said that the Group of 20 nations should revisit the issue.
“Japan’s expansionary policies are having various ripple effects on many countries,” Hyun, 62, told reporters on March 23 in Bundang, on his second day as finance chief. “The yen is depreciating while the won is...
