Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling at A. Gary Shilling & Co. writes: Short stocks and commodities, go long the dollar and Treasuries – if stocks continue to decline, the safety of Treasuries and investment-grade bonds will outweigh concerns about the end of QE. World economies are growing slowly at
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Social-investment networks, which started appearing in the middle of the last decade, are attracting record interest, turning top performers into market stars for individual investors. The top traders – gurus – may have as many as 100,000 followers and 10,000 copiers, raising concerns among professional investors. Justin
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Corporate creditworthiness in the US is deteriorating at the fastest pace since 2009 with earnings growth slowing as yields rise from record lows. Moody’s said the ratio of upgrades to downgrades fell to 0.89 times in the first 5 months of the year after reaching a post-crisis
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: 10-year Treasuries yield 2.61 percent versus the S&P 500 aggregate earnings yield of 6.4 percent – more than double the average spread of 1.9 points since 2000. Investors are avoiding longer-term Treasuries, concerned that returns will be depressed for years, and money managers foresee the end of a rally that
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Dan Heckman at US Bank Wealth Mgmt said Bernanke surprised the markets, which now have a real expectation of curtailment at some point, and unless growth turns very negative and inflation moves much lower, the Fed will not back away from the tapering viewpoint. Ian Lyngen at CRT
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Gold’s 14-day relative strength index was below the level that indicates a rebound may be imminent. Jeffrey Christian at CPM said it is too soon to predict if a buying frenzy will be repeated because the enthusiastic buyers in April have become more cautious, though says the worst
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Gregg Berman at the SEC’s Office of Analytics and Research said most mini-flash stock crashes are not the result of broken software but human errors like entering the wrong number of shares or some other typographical error, or incorrectly entering limit orders – these errors can be fixed
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Standard & Poor’s said: It increased the US’s AA+ credit rating outlook to stable from negative based on receding fiscal risks, and the US has a less than 1-in-3 likelihood of a downgrade in the near term due to tentative improvements like the deal to avoid the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Shares of discount brokers are gaining the most since 2003 relative to the S&P 500, a sign that small investors are joining the 4-year bull market. Discount broker stocks beat the market by at least this much in 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2009, years in which the S&P 500
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: John Bogle writes: While the idea of market timing is simple, many hedge fund managers have tried but precious few have succeeded. Joe Carlen, author of “The Einstein of Money”, said the Benjamin Graham Joint Account – the predecessor to Graham-Newman Corporation – lost 70% from 1929 through
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