Salient to Investors: Hitoshi Asaoka at Mizuho Trust & Banking expects the yen to weaken, saying should the Fed reduce stimulus, US Treasury yields will rise and the currencies of countries easing monetary policy will be sold and those of nations tightening will be bought. Steve Brice at Standard Chartered thinks
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Max Gottschalk at Gottex Fund Mgmt said: His largest Asia fund’s bets on small Japanese companies have been cut and the fund now allocates 2/3 of its Japan investments with managers that focus on large companies. A big part of the rally in Japanese equities has been in small
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: OECD predicts faster global economic growth, led by the US and Japan: growth in member countries will accelerate to 2.3 percent in 2014 from 1.2 percent in 2013, China, will grow 8.4 percent in 2014 after growth of 7.8 percent in 2013. Neil Mackinnon at VTB Capital
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Pier Carlo Padoan at OECD said: Global economic growth will accelerate at multiple speeds in 2014 with both the US and Japan continuing to outpace the euro area. Rising unemployment is the most pressing challenge and euro countries with trade surpluses such as Germany need to allow wages to rise Reform fatigue is mounting
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A panel of academics and executives said if Japan fails to show concrete success in fiscal reform, the large bond purchases by the BoJ over the next 2 years could be seen as debt monetization, causing a sharp spike in yields and weakening the effect of monetary easing. The
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Fareed Zakaria said: The data is increasingly convincing that the Keynesians have been right, cutting spending in the kind of recession we have gone through will only hurt growth not help it. But spending on its own is not enough. For sustained growth in the long-term, countries
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Mark Matthews at Bank Julius Baer said the bull market will resume because of compelling fundamentals. Eisuke Sakakibara said Japanese equities had risen too much, too fast, especially financial stocks, and needed a correction before resuming their climb. J. Kyle Bass at Hayman Advisors said selling from JGB investors has overwhelmed
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Barry Knapp at Barclays predicts the Fed will maintain its current rate of asset purchases into 2014, as the labor market is again the Fed’s focus. Knapp said an improving labor market rather than accelerating inflation made the Fed end its last 3 easings – May 1983, February 1994, Feb-to-August, 2004. In
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Fareed Zakaria said: The fundamental rule of international relations is that as a country becomes powerful, others gang up to bring it down – viz the Habsburg Empire to Napoleonic France to Germany to the Soviet Union. The one great exception in modern history is the US,
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bloomberg Global Poll: International investors are the most bullish on the US and Japanese markets in more than 3.5 years as both economies are seen to be improving. Over 40% will reduce gold exposure over the next 6 months, close to 3 times more than those who
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