Salient to Investors: David Stockman writes: The central banks have shot their wad after increasing their aggregate balance sheet from $3 trillion to $22 trillion over the last 15 years, which falsified financial prices. The coming deflation will bring a plunge in corporate profits and collapsing prices of vastly inflated risk asset classes. The
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The slump in commodity prices to a 5-year low signals investors are cautious about the strength of the global economy. Brent crude touched a 2-year low last week and iron ore at Qingdao is the lowest since 2009. Economists expect China to grow 7.4% in 2014, the weakest
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Lewis Braham writes: Contrarian funds can be a hedge of sorts, though a potentially volatile one as out-of-favor sectors tend to be cyclical and prone to booms and busts. Shorting is inherently dangerous as markets have been trending higher. Brian Singer at William Blair Macro Allocation Fund
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jeremy Grantham at GMO said: Commodity prices fell for a hundred years by an average of 70 percent, and then from 2002 basically everything tripled and regained the whole decline in 6 years – tobacco was the only commodity that fell. The game changed because of the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jeremy Grantham at Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo says: The US is muddling through reasonably well in the short-term, but long-term we are in a slowdown unappreciated by most economists – because they are not interested in the long-term. US growth won’t ever return to previous levels because
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Justin Smirk at Westpac Banking focuses primarily on economic cycles, central banks and financial markets to make commodity predictions. He says: Industrial metals will rally through June 2013 as the economy strengthens in China. China’s economy is at a turning point both for policy and inventories, said We are at the worst
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jim Chanos at Kynikos Associates says: He expects declines in companies that may be inexpensive compared with earnings, like in natural gas, which have enormous cash needs, and iron-ore producers, where industry capacity will expand globally even as demand stalls because of China’s slowdown A number of high-profile natural gas companies may be in financial
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