Salient to Investors: Trust in precious metals as a store of wealth is diminishing amid concern that growth is weakening. Bloomberg survey in December 2012 expected silver to gain 33 percent in 2013 either because , or accelerating growth would spur more industrial buying; but silver is on track for its
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Goldman Sachs maintained its neutral recommendation on commodity prices, predicting a significant decline in agriculture in half2 even if summer weather is slightly worse than 2011. Jeffrey Currie and Damien Courvalin et al at Goldman predict the S&P GSCI Enhanced Index will return 2.3 percent over 12 months,
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The economic expansion shows signs of lasting almost twice as long as average, with few of the excesses that often presage the start of contractions – inflation is slowing, not quickening, household debt is shrinking, not expanding, and the labor market is slack, not tight. Robert Gordon
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The S&P GSCI Spot Index has lagged the MSCI All-Country World Index for 6 months, the longest stretch since 1998. Hedge funds cut combined bullish bets across 18 US raw-material futures by 51 percent from a 16-month high in September and are bearish on 6 of them. EPFR Global
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bruce Stout at Aberdeen Asset Mgmt says: Optimism is too high for stocks and bond yields are too low His fund’s fixed-income holdings are at the lowest level in 25 years. The main problem is trying to get yield in a world where there is no yield, but
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jeffrey Kleintop at LPL Financial said US companies announced $275 billion of repurchases this quarter, the highest in more than 5 years. 79 percent of buyback orders at Goldman Sachs corporate trading desk were active yesterday, the most in 2013. Jim Welsh at Forward Mgmt said the overall buy-the-dip
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hedge funds continue to be an overpriced, middling asset class. Goldman Sachs found that hedge funds returned an average of 5 percent in 2013 versus a 15 percent gain in the S&P 500, while only 5 percent of the funds beat the S&P and more than 1
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Wu Kan at Dazhong Insurance said investors are avoiding stocks related to traditional manufacturing industries, while the selloff in Japan has spread risk-off sentiment across the region. The Shanghai Composite is at 9.3 times 12-month estimated earnings versus a 7-yr average of 15.7 times. Ken Peng at BNP Paribas said the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Goldman Sachs study says: Bond investors do not perceive the 6 biggest US banks as too big to fail, including itself. The 6 banks have had an average funding-cost advantage over smaller competitors of 0.31 percent since 1999 – widest in the financial crisis and now an average 0.10
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The loss of water rights to heavy industry, the worst drought in four decades and the rise in debt that follows is causing farmers to take their own lives – more than 2,200 farmers in India committed suicide in the past 4 years. Mandar Sathe at Prayas said a
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