Salient to Investors: Markus Rosgen and Yue Hin Pong at Citigroup said stock funds attracted $18.8 billion last week versus $3 billion for bonds, with 58 percent of equity inflows going to North American funds. Pong said the outperformance of equities over bonds was mainly driven by US ETFs, while earnings
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Nigel Gault at IHS Global Insight said the drop in GDP in Q4 2012 was driven by temporary corrections in defense spending and inventories and is not a harbinger of recession – expects 2 percent growth in Q1 2013. Mark Zandi at Moody’s Analytics said the expansion will remain on course thanks
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Eric DeMarco at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions said politicians on notice that if they don’t fix the drop in defense cuts, the country is going back into recession. Benjamin Mandel at the Bureau of Economic Analysis said on an annualized basis, defense spending for the year fell 3.1 percent from 2011. Kevin Brancato
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling at A. Gary Shilling & Co writes: Investor zeal for yield and disregard for risk favors the junkiest of the junk. When the grand disconnect between investor focus on the immense liquidity created by central banks and weak and weakening global economies becomes unsustainable, probably
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: James Hamilton at the University of California said interest rates are climbing as asset purchases help bolster confidence in economic growth. Hamilton said the economy picking up puts upward pressure on yields regardless of what the Fed is doing on the bond supply side, pleasing the Fed. Jonathan Wright at Johns Hopkins said
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Venezuela bondholders have returned 14.7 percent annually, double the emerging-market average, enriching investors from OppenheimerFunds to Goldman Sachs. Sara Zervos at OppenheimerFunds said Chavez has done little good for Venezuela, but has serviced the bonds, and the Venezuelan securities are more attractive than Brazilian bonds, which offers little upside. Zervos said
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: GDP in Q4 2012 was weaker than any economist forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Paul Edelstein at IHS Global Insight said this is not a recessionary signal by any means, but a payback in national defense spending, with consumer spending picking up and fixed investment strong. David Greenlaw and Ted
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The median economist expects the Fed’s latest round of bond buying to reach $1.14 trillion before he ends the program in Q1 2014, and the economy to grow 2 percent in 2013 versus the FOMC forecast of 2.3 percent to 3 percent. 57 percent of economists said the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Nicholas Spiro at Spiro Sovereign Strategy writes: Market sentiment toward the euro area has swung from panic to growing confidence in just six months. Spain and Italy, the twin bellwethers of sentiment on Europe, show how markets are again underpricing sovereign risk as even a cursory glance at
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bank of England policy maker David Miles said UK growth will rise to 2 to 2.5 percent a year within 18 months without a substantial increase in inflation. MIles expects the cruising speed of the economy to return to the long-run average 2-2.5 per cent. Jane Foley at Rabobank Intl
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