Salient to Investors: Contrarian fund manager Bill Smead is: Bullish on the U.S. but bearish on companies exposed to China. Looks for strong balance sheets, industries with high barriers to entry, long histories of profits and dividends, p/e ratios below their 10-year average, strong insider ownership, and shareholder friendliness with regard to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Japan is to scrap atomic power by the end of the 2030s but will allow idled reactors to restart during the 27-year wind-down period. Before Fukushima, Japan got almost 30 percent of its electricity from atomic power. Richard Katz at the Oriental Economist Report said the plan is a desperate election gambit
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Fareed Zakaria said: Max Weber singled out China and Japan as cultures particularly prone to poverty and stagnation, but were the world’s fastest-growing two large economies over the past five decades. Another powerhouse, India, was once seen as having a culture totally incompatible with economic success. China was stagnant for centuries. What changed was their
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Heat wave that set or tied 196 daily temperature records yesterday moves east, promising to raise energy demand. MDA EarthSat Weather expects July to be one of the five warmest since 1950 in the large cities that use the most energy. Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/u-s-weather-promises-energy-boost-as-temperatures-rise.html
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Peter Orszag at Citigroup said well under 0.1 percent of cars and trucks in the U.S. run on natural gas versus seventy-five percent in Armenia. More natural-gas cars and trucks could reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and other pollutants. There are fewer than 2,000 natural-gas filling stations in the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The MSCI World Energy Index is down 9.6 percent in 2012, more than any other group, and is up 45 percent since the market bottom in 2009, less than any other industry with earnings tied to economic growth. U.S. energy stocks are at the cheapest levels relative to the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: George Soros called on Europe to buy Italian and Spanish bonds, warning a failure by leaders meeting on June 28 to produce drastic measures could spell the end of the euro. Wayne Lin at Legg Mason says the EU summit won’t produce anything extraordinary, that Soros’ views are extreme, and expects more volatility.
READ MORE... →