Salient to Investors: Global M & A in Q4 rose to the highest level since Q3 2008. Gene Sykes at Goldman Sachs said the pickup may extend into 2013 once the fiscal cliff and euro crises find a solution, with driven by continuing consolidation in natural resources, industrials, technology and financial services. Corporations sit
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Corporate profits are at all time high of almost 12 percent of GDP versus real wages at a record low of almost 2%. Companies have almost $4 trillion in cash, or 13.6% of total assets. Watch the video at http://www.bloomberg.com/video/are-we-facing-a-permanent-decline-in-real-wages-rskODOU8Tzm4u811JZzHQg.html Click here to receive free email alerts of articles as soon as
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Americans have missed $200 billion of stock gains by draining money from the market in the past 4 years. Since the bull market began in March 2009, the proportion of retirement funds in stocks fell 0.5 percent versus the average rise of 8.2 percent in rallies since 1990. ICI
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The number of people sued by the SEC or charged with insider trading by the Justice Department has more than doubled since 2008 – 22 percent involving health-care stocks. Bankers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, traders, analysts, hedge-fund managers, company chiefs, pharmaceutical executives and movie producers, lovers, neighbors, classmates
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Brian Frank at Frank Capital Partners writes: Value stocks are driven more by actual cash-flows than by optimistic future projections, and therefore are less prone to deeply disappointing investors with “lower-than-expected” forecasts. Growth and momentum stocks drove 2012 stock market performance and have probably come too far too fast,
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Brokers and dealers cut their inventory of US muni bonds in Q3 to the least since Q1 2004. Investor demand for munis has faltered. Investors are looking to unload more than $1 billion of the debt, the most in two years. David Manges at BNY Mellon Capital Market said investors are
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The National Association for Business Economics expects: The US economy to grow 2.1 percent in 2013 – 1.6 percent in Q4, 1.8 percent in Q1, 2.4 percent in Q2, 2.6 percent in Q3, and 3 percent in Q4. Unemployment will average 7.7 percent in 2013. Housing to again be
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The average analyst expects capital spending by S&P 500 companies to drop 1.3 percent in 2013 after 3 years of growth. Bears say the last decline was at the end of 2008, just before stocks slumped to a 12-year low, and expect CEO pessimism to sap the rally. Bulls say
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: David Sowerby at Loomis Sayles it’s a tug of war between the fiscal cliff and global monetary easing – most bullish is valuation and an accommodative Fed. The average analyst expects capital spending by S&P 500 companies to drop 1.3 percent in 2013 after 3 years of growth. Bears say the last decline was at
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: David Chalupnik at Nuveen Asset Mgmt said market fundamentals are looking better. Scott Minerd at Guggenheim Partners said the fiscal cliff is creating value in equities as too much negativity is priced in – the fiscal cliff is a non-event. Steven Milunovich at UBS cut his price estimate for Apple to $700 from
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