Salient to Investors: John Gilbert at General Re-New England Asset Mgmt, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway, said: Fed policy has lifted stocks but has created systemic risk in the world financial system for which they take little responsibility, because what happens outside the US is not their assignment. A slowdown
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The National Bureau of Economic Research found: A robot could replicate Warren Buffett’s stock-picking performance. The ingredients of that robot are 1.6x leverage, which is what Buffett runs at Berkshire Hathaway, and a statistical factor-weighting investment approach that overweights growing, high-payout, profitable companies with low betas. Read
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Noah Weisberger at Goldman Sachs said: The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index will rise 18 percent to 13,600 by the end of 2014, the biggest gain since a rise of 62 percent in 2009, on prospects the economy will stabilize. Commodities will lag the rally in equities.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Resistance to hiring will help push S&P 500 Index profit margins above 10 percent next year, the highest ever. The 5-year rally has restored $14 trillion to share prices, yet US payrolls remain 1.5 million below the level in 2008. Michael Holland at Holland & Co said
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bill O’Neill at UBS Wealth Mgmt said the story is still the combination of easy money policies and expectations of growth into 2014 and that growth is on the horizon. The Investment Companies Institute reports individual investors gave $30 billion to managers in 2013, the first net
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jim Rogers said: Fed policy is incompetent and the Federal Reserve should be eliminated. The world has survived just fine without central banks for most of its history, America has had 3 central banks – the first two disappeared – and this one will self-destruct because it
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Mohamed El-Erian at Pimco said: The Fed’s determination to taper puts more risk in risk assets, such as stocks. The safety margin built into risk assets is much less now. The Fed is wary of upsetting financial markets, as it sees financial market strength as a key
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: David Stockman said: QE is brewing asset bubbles around the world, exporting its lunatic policy worldwide Central banks all over the world have been massively expanding their balance sheets, and as a result of that there are bubbles in everything in the world, asset values are exaggerated
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Alan Greenspan said: The US economy will grow closer to 2 percent in 2014 as it is restrained by a degree of uncertainty that is reducing investment, below the median economist estimate of 2.6 percent. The US stock market is not in a bubble. The economy is
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Richard Koo at Nomura said: Mini-bubbles can occur during a balance sheet recession, like this one. Not yet seeing a big bubble, but concerned about mini bubbles. In a monetary policy-driven market, money created by an accommodative central bank typically spreads throughout the economy and lifts markets. During
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