Salient to Investors: Mark Vitner at Wells Fargo Securities said housing will move significantly higher over the next year driven by low mortgage rates, a gradual improvement in the labor market, and very low inventories. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index is up 70 percent since year-end 2011 versus the 8.1 percent gain for the S&P 500.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: FRB of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said: Continued aggressive use of balance sheet monetary tools will be justified for some time even if fiscal cliff issues are properly addressed. We are not remotely close to substantial improvement on the employment front. We will have to begin to tighten
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Alan Greenspan said that if we get out of the fiscal cliff with a moderate recession, the price is very cheap. The CBOE OEX Volatility Index has risen 56 percent since its low on Sept. 21, the highest level since August 2011 relative to the CBOE Volatility Index of S&P 500 contracts.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Stronger housing demand and hiring in the US and accelerating factory output and retail sales in China is providing international growth as Europe and Japan stagnate. Jim O’Neill at Goldman Sachs Asset Mgmt said improving China and the US is extremely good news. Tim Drayson at Legal & General Investment
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Pew Research Center and Washington Post survey said 51 percent of Americans expect the US to go over the fiscal cliff, 38 percent expect a deal. 53 percent would blame Republicans for going over the cliff versus 29 percent who would blame Obama, 10 percent who would blame both sides. Read the full article
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: JPMorgan Chase said the drop in the yield on 10-yr Treasuries below 1.7 percent indicates investors expect GDP to fall 0.3 percent next year as the fiscal cliff takes effect. Terry Belton at JPMorgan Chase continues to believe that Congress avoids the fiscal cliff. Priya Misra at Bank of America Merrill Lynch
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Saumil Parikh at Pimco said equities will return an annualized 4 percent to 5.1 percent over the coming 5 to 10 years verus their historical rate of almost 10 percent as the economy grows at a slower pace due to more retirees than workers and productivity decline due to less
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Home Depot Q3 profit topped analysts’ estimates. The US housing market is healing, with new-home sales rising to the fastest pace in two years and construction starting at the fastest rate in four years. Americans’ real estate holdings have risen in value for two straight quarters. CoreLogic said over
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hispanics are the fastest growing component of America’s workforce, yet over 80 percent of Latinos ages 25 and older don’t have a bachelor’s degree, and the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 10 percent in October versus 7.9 percent nationally. The National Center for Education Statistics says 14 percent of Hispanics ages
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Older people are growing and are more likely to forgo purchases of houses, cars and other big-ticket items that the Fed is trying to encourage with near-zero interest rates. William C. Dudley at FRB of New York said spending by older age people is less likely to be easily stimulated by
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