Salient to Investors: Jeremy Siegel at Wharton said: The start of tapering in September is already baked into bond and stocks prices and won’t stop stocks rising to between Dow 16,000 and 17,000 by year-end and 17,000 or more in 2014 as long as earnings continue to beat expectations at
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Argutori writes: The financial markets are due for a correction. Volatility in the financial markets will spike before the end of 2013 because: Volatility can’t go much lower. Historically, when the VIX has dropped below 15 the S&P 500 tends to fall as well. Over the past
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The IMF said: Risks are increasing that China’s economic growth this year will fall short of its forecast of 7.75 percent. China is becoming increasingly vulnerable to risks from an expansion of non-traditional sources of credit and borrowing by local governments. China’s heavy reliance on credit and investment to sustain activity is raising
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Caroline Baum writes: For the past two months, the Fed has been doing everything in its power to depress long-term interest rates. The Fed seems to talk as if they can send rates tumbling again. They can’t. The problem is the underlying message, not communication. The US economy is gradually
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Economists call Brazil’s plans to defeat the its worst inflation threat in a decade too little and too late. Roberto Luis Troster at Delta Consulting said it will not work because the central bank waited too long to act, while inflation has its own dynamic as producers are
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The FRB of San Francisco says: Normal wage models do not apply during and after recessions. In the last 3 US recessions, wages held steady or did not decline by very much, despite spikes in unemployment, during the downturns, and then as the economy recovered and unemployment fell,
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: CB Insights said social-media companies drew only 2 percent of the venture capital headed to Internet-based enterprises last quarter, versus 6 percent each quarter in the 2-year stretch that ended in mid-2012. Anand Sanwal at CB Insights said big data and cloud companies are grabbing the attention of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Clive Crook writes: The US and advanced economies have not done enough to head off the next financial meltdown. Gain made in safety is likely to be too small even to offset the danger created since the crash by greater concentration in the finance industry. The emerging
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Walter “Bucky” Hellwig at BB&T Wealth Mgmt said Intuit’s monthly small-business employment index, which measures hiring at companies with fewer than 20 workers, and Insperity’s average number of work-site employees paid per month at customers both provide an earlier and accurate read on employment trends at small- and
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Europe’s biggest real estate managers are making their first investments in southern Europe since the financial crisis as low prices and diminishing risk make commercial properties more attractive. Anne Kavanagh at Axa Real Estate Investment Managers said we are at or near the bottom and starting to see
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