Salient to Investors: Emerging-market equity funds posted $8.7 billion of outflows in Q2, $262 million of outflows n the week ended June 27 – 2012 inflows dropped to $14 billion. Russia’s RTS Index lost 22 percent this quarter, Brazil’s Bovespa Index lost 18 percent, Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.3 percent. Chinese industrial companies’ profits
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Neil Shearing at Capital Economics says there is an improvement in the global risk appetite because fears of an immediate disruption in the euro zone have eased, and policy makers seem willing to move. EU is the largest export market for Brazil, Russia, India and China. EPFR Global reported that emerging
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hedge funds et al raised net-long positions across 18 U.S. futures and options last week, the highest in four weeks and the first consecutive gain since the end of February. Commodities slumped into a bear market June 21. Jeffrey Sherman at DoubleLine Capital expects volatility in commodities as people
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hedge funds and distressed debt funds are buying Greek mortgage bonds as mutual funds and banks have to sell because of credit downgrades, in a bet the bonds will rebound if Greece stays in the euro. JPMorgan said initially assigned top credits pay 22 percentage points more than benchmark rates, more
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Douglas Swanson at JPMorgan Chase sees nothing in the short term to cure Europe. Hedge-funds and large speculators increased net-short position in 10-year T-note futures in the week ending June 12. Speculative short positions outnumbered long positions by 95,385 contracts on the CBT. The Fed’s term premium shows U.S. government bonds at almost
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: U.K. and France boosted holdings of U.S. Treasuries by over 26 percent in April, total international demand for U.S. financial assets slowed. Chinese holdings rose $1.5 billion to $1.15 trillion. Chris Rupkey of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ said safe haven flows from Europe are driving T-yields down, and expects the trend to continue until Europe stems its crisis.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A prolonged slowdown in the BRICs threatens a world economy in its weakest spell since the end of the 2009 recession, which the BRICs helped shorten by contributing about half of the international expansion since 2007. Citigroup’s surprise index, which measures how much data miss predictions, is
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Private-equity and institutional funds cannot find enough low-cost foreclosed homes as the supply has fallen and prices have recovered. U.S. home prices are 35 percent below the 2006 peak. Demand for rentals is growing, homeownership is at the lowest level since 1997. Bulk sales may be delayed by political pressure to monitor the properties.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bloomberg reports 64 percent of 108 S&P 500 companies had analyst ratings lowered in the past week. Investment Company Institute say American equity mutual funds had $7.2 billion of outflows during the week ended May 23 versus $178 billion of outflows in the previous 12 months. Predictions: Blackstone Group’s Byron Wien says it’s safe to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Stocks in developed countries are being favored over emerging markets in the belief they provide a cushion during a weakening recovery. Keith Wirtz of Fifth Third Asset Management sees a shift to countries less reliant on mining and energy production. Eric Teal of First Citizens Bancshares said definitions of buy, sell and
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