Salient to Investors: Mark Lynch at George Washington University said history shows that in a chaotic, violent civil war such as in Syria, US intervention would have had little effect other than to extend and exacerbate the conflict. David Kilcullen at Caerus Associates said American air power will successfully blunt any
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Zhu Haibin at JPMorgan Chase said property investment will remain the biggest macroeconomic risk in half2 even as a deceleration in investment is less severe than half1. Hua Changchun at Nomura said completed apartments must come to market sooner or later, and potential buyers will continue to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: TransUnion said as much as 20% of home equity lines of credit are at increased risk of default as they switch from interest-only to include principal, causing monthly payments to rise more than 50%. Ezra Becker at TransUnion said more than half of the outstanding HELOCs have
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Matthew Ledvina at Anaford said Fatca and the Swiss bank disclosure program has intensified the search for US nationals beyond all measure. The US is the only OECD country that taxes its citizens abroad. Almost 9,000 Americans living overseas have surrendered their passports over the past 5
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Philip Vermeulen at ECB and Gabriel Zucman at London School of Economics said the wealth of the super-affluent is undercounted because of tax shelters and non-responses to questionnaires. Zucman said the top 0.1% of Americans with at least $20 million in net wealth owned 23.5% of all US
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A two-decade surge in growth in Africa has raised the prospect of the “African lions” emulating the “Asian tiger” economies in the 21st century. Africa’s has vast untapped resources, a young population and an expanding middle-class. It also has rampant poverty and inequality, a rise in Islamist
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies said millennials – born from 1979 to 1996 – began saving for retirement at a median age of 22, versus 27 for Generation X and 35 for baby boomers. 71% of millennials offered 401(k) or similar plans contributed a median 8%
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Nicholas Colas at ConvergEx said participation in SNAP is a distress indicator so its recent decline suggests the recovery is benefiting more Americans. Russell Price at Ameriprise Financial said many low-income households are seeing modest tailwinds as several states have increased minimum wage and the federal level
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Michael Bryan at FRB of Atlanta said restaurant menu prices do not change as often as many other goods and services so increases signal restaurant owners see inflation rising as sticky prices give a much better idea of future inflation. The sticky CPI, which only includes items
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Paul Ashworth at Capital Economics said: The 1.3 million private-sector jobs created in half1 2014 paid an average of $867 a week versus $843 per week for the existing 117 million private-sector jobs. Mining, construction and business-services companies – which traditionally pay more than the average – are increasingly
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