Salient to Investors: Biotech, fracking and diversity are keys to prosperity for cities. David Albouy at the University of Michigan says Austin is ‘quality of life city’. Austin could lose its crown to Houston if it is unable to take advantage of industries that are on the rise, such as biotechnology
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Edward Glaeser at Harvard says: Exuberant buyers may be more rational than many assume and booms are often consistent with reasonable beliefs about the future — the recent housing boom fits comfortably within America’s speculative past. In 1817, Alabama farmland was $35 per acre (in 2012 dollars) and rose to $134
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Jeffrey D. Sachs say smart machines are substituting for young unskilled labor, and our children and grandchildren will be worse off as the wages of unskilled young adults decline. While a subset of young adults is tech savvy and the leading edge of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: David A. Stockman writes: The US is broke – fiscally, morally, intellectually – and the Fed has incited a global currency war that will soon overwhelm it. This latest Wall Street bubble, inflated by phony money from the Fed rather than real economic gains, will burst within a
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The Scotia Canadian Dividend Fund cut bank holdings by 40 percent from the end of 2011 on concern that lending is slowing as consumers retrench. Fund manager Jason Gibbs at GCIC said there is no question that things are going to slow down and is using the released funds to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Mark Kiesel at Pimco said: US industries tied to housing will grow 4 times as fast as the economy, making them top picks for investors. Housing starts will increase 15 percent a year until at least 2015 Home prices will rise over 5 percent annually as demand recovers from the worst
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Residential real estate prices increased in January by the most since June 2006, exceeding the median forecast. Historically low lending rates and a stronger labor market have helped fueled the rebound in housing. Christophe Barraud at Market Securities-Kyte Group said housing keeps on recovering, and interest rates are
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Real estate equity jumped 25 percent in 2012, the biggest increase in 65 years. Home values rose to the highest levels since 2007. Shaun Richardson at Icon Advisory said mortgages originations should rise 10 percent in 2013. The Fed said 6 percent of lenders eased equity-mortgage standards at the end
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling at A. Gary Shilling & Co. says 5 of the 7 varieties of deflation are present in the US economy. Commodity price deflation will continue as oversupply continues to swamp demand amid weak global growth and a hard landing in China, which remains export-driven. The slow global
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Paul Farrell writes: We are at a market top and an economic turning point. Bernanke’s non-stop cheap-and-easy-money printing presses are loved by Wall Street banks but are bad for the rest of America. His reappointment – certain to become Obama’s greatest domestic blunder – so shocked Nassim Taleb
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