Salient to Investors: In Q1 2013, BRIC bonds, currencies, and stocks fell together for the first time since 2006. Since 2003, the MSCI BRIC Index has returned 227 percent, but is down 17 percent in 2013 and trailing the S&P 500 by the most since 1998. The MSCI BRIC Index
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Matthew C. Klein writes: Hedge Fund Research says the S&P 500 index with dividends reinvested beat the average hedge fund over the past decade. There are always periods when certain asset classes did better than others. E.g., gold from the middle of 2001 increased by more than 600
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Stephen Wood at Russell Investments says earnings will be the story of the week and the story of the month. Charles Plosser at FRB of Philadelphia said the Fed should begin tapering in September, while James Bullard of FRB of St. Louis said it should not cut back until inflation accelerates
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Share prices for the 10 largest diversified emerging-market ETFs on average were 42.6 percent more volatile than their underlying indexes from May 22 to June 24, when Bernanke triggered the sell-off that sent emerging-market stocks to a 1-year low, while the 5 biggest emerging-market index mutual funds were
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jim Rogers writes: How do you tell China to stop building infrastructure and start consuming? That happened gradually in the US, UK and many other countries historically. No economy or market goes straight up so expect China to have many setbacks. America had a Civil War, several depressions,
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: After a decade as rock stars, hedge fund managers seem to be fading just as quickly as musicians do. Generating “alpha” is slipping further out of reach. Goldman Sachs said in May that hedge fund performance lagged the S&P 500 index by 10 percent this year, while
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hank Smith at Haverford Trust said the story for stocks this year is about confidence replacing uncertainty and anxiety, a big driver for equity returns, and we are still far away from worrying about too much optimism or exuberance. Smith said the driver of equity returns from March
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hamilton “Tony” James of Blackstone Group said stocks were a fool’s game compared with alternative investments. and investing in alternatives makes sense even when they underperform. James said the return from these idiosyncratic investments are very uncorrelated to the broader markets, so portfolio volatility falls. Hedge funds have been
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: US companies are poised to post some of their weakest quarterly earnings reports in 4 years, in part due to a stronger dollar. The IMF cut its forecast for global growth in 2013 to 3.1 percent, and for the US to 1.7 percent. Analysts who reduced earnings forecasts
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Stephen Stanley at Pierpont Securities sees nothing on the economy side to have precipitated such a seismic shift in the Fed’s approach to QE. Stanley said QE was contributing to a market environment where people were taking too much risk, and the beginning of tapering in September is
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