Salient to Investors: Soichiro Monji at Daiwa SB Investments said selling is feeding into more selling on underlying concern about the Fed’s early exit. Angus Gluskie at White Funds Management said it is difficult for the market to keep rallying as further moves from Japanese equities need to be fundamentally driven. Ng Soo Nam
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Matthew Kaufler at Federated Investors said the takeaway from today’s statistics is continued bias to keep QE – positive for financial assets as long as that perception exists. Patrick Spencer at Robert W. Baird said the jury is still out on sustainable growth, and Bernanke said he will only start
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Copper stockpiles are rising to the highest in a decade, yet manufacturers are paying the biggest premiums for the metal in as much as 7 years as financing deals lock up supply and extend lines at warehouses. LME copper inventories more than doubled in the past year and
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Charlene Chu at Fitch Ratings says: Total lending from banks et al in China was 198 percent of GDP in 2012 versus 125 percent 4 years earlier, and there is just no way to grow out of a debt problem when credit is already twice as large as
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Paul Volcker said: The Fed will fall short by being asked to meet price stability and full employment – a mandate both operationally confusing and ultimately illusory. Asking too much is accommodating misguided fiscal policies, dealing with structural imbalances, to square continuously the hypothetical circles of stability, growth
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: In Q1, China’s broadest measure of credit rose 58 percent and GDP gained 7.7 percent – each $1 in credit added the equivalent of 17 cents in GDP, down from 29 cents in 2012 and 83 cents in 2007. The IMF said decisive policy changes are needed in
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: RealtyTrac said foreclosure sales fell 22 percent in Q1 from a year earlier as rising prices reduced the incentive to sell for owners underwater Daren Blomquist at RealtyTrac said rising prices take away the urgency from banks and homeowners from having to do a short sale. Blomquist said for metropolitan
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Leemore Dafny’s examination of health-insurance markets is said to have helped mold the state and federal exchanges that are central to Obamacare’s 2010 health-care law. Her 2010 paper in the American Economic Review found that a lack of competition in insurance markets drives up premiums, that insurers charge more
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: FRB of Boston President Eric Rosengren said: Significant accommodation remains appropriate and warned that inflation could impair growth should it decline further. It may be undesirable to abruptly stop purchases: better a modest reduction in the pace of asset purchases when we see a gradual improvement in labor markets and the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Gold and wine prices that tracked each other in the past decade are now diverging. The Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 Index tripled in the past 10 years and gold advanced fourfold. Ric Deverell at Credit Suisse said gold may drop to $1,100 an ounce in a year and below
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