Salient to Investors: A strengthening economy that cause more Americans to seek work would paradoxically make it harder to lower the unemployment rate to the Fed’s target level. The BLS estimates there are 2.6 million interested in working who remained outside of the labor force because of discouragement, illness, or school. Joel Prakken at Macroeconomic
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Africa’s growing middle class and rising travel is fueling the fastest pace of hotel development in the world. Africa is buoyed by increasing trade with countries including China and rising demand for services such as lodging. The Economist Intelligence Unit says over half of African countries will post GDP of 5
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling at A. Gary Shilling & Co writes: The total labor-force participation rates tend was 63.5 percent in June 2013 versus 67.4 percent in early 2000. The participation rates of 16-to 24-year-olds has declined sharply since 2000 as slow economic growth, limited jobs and rising unemployment rates have encouraged
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: William Pesek writes: Rampant political dysfunction has stopped India’s progress cold. India is in a self-destructive pattern of relenting on the big issues, then killing would-be investors with the details. The lack of transparency and reliability makes it virtually impossible to consider long-term investments in India. India is proving
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Caroline Baum writes: The Fed’s forecast for improved half2 growth is just that – we’ve been waiting years for stronger growth. Many of the more hawkish Fed presidents have been uncomfortable with QE from the start, and are supported by little data on which to evaluate the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: AFK is the most actively traded Africa ETF and the first ETF to move to weighting holdings based on GDP of the countries it tracks. The vast majority of ETFs that focus on foreign countries and regions are weighted by market cap, which captures only the shares
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Stretched budgets and sluggish growth are putting emerging-market governments on a collision course with rising pressures from recently empowered middle classes for more spending and better services. Policy makers face the end to an era of abundant global liquidity that helped fuel the fastest expansion in three decades. The
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Nomura said: The Reserve Bank of India’s surprise policy reversal and the first government debt-sale failures in 10 months risk plans to cut the budget deficit. Vivek Rajpal at Nomura said India is expanding at the slowest pace in a decade and tightening by the RBI will cool growth and strain public finances
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling writes: The Fed has yet to achieve its dual mandate of price stability and full employment. QE had been tried by the Bank of Japan for years without notable success, but Western central banks have become increasingly desperate as they look for ways to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Fareed Zakaria said: Unlike most developing nations, China spends little on subsidizing current consumption but spends massively on export-free zones, highways, rail systems and airports. No developing democracy has been able to ignore short-term political pressures and execute a disciplined growth strategy with such success. China’s growth
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