Salient to Investors: Mark Hulbert writes: Avoid mutual funds whose recent performance has begun to slip, no matter how good their performance might have been in previous years. Favor funds with stellar recent returns, even if their longer-term performance is dismal. No Load Fund X is the best performing stock-mutual-fund
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Brett Arends writes: It is not clear if high debt levels lead to slower growth, or result from slower growth, or that the two have only a loose connection, but we cannot borrow and print money indefinitely with no consequences whatsoever. Rogoff and Reinhart got their math
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: William Pesek writes: Japan has taught us that slashing interest rates to zero and beyond is much easier than returning them to normalcy. In Japan, credit spreads mean little, the underlying assets on which they are based are drugged up on monetary stimulants, bank balance sheets get muddied, it
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Gold at the lowest price in 2 years on April 16, is triggering a frenzy among coin and jewelry buyers from the US to India, China and Australia. Mark Pervan at Australia & NZ Banking said gold may rise to $1,550 within 6 months on physical and investment demand. The Akshaya
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bruce Zimmerman at Utimco said that in the 3 months ending February 28, his fund reduced bullion holdings of $1.4 billion by $375 million, and bought $75 million in gold futures, $225 million in developed-market equities and $75 million in emerging-market equity futures. Zimmerman said the fund’s total exposure to gold has not
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: 73 percent of the 237 S&P 500 index members so far reporting have beaten earnings estimates, 56 percent missed on revenue estimates. 24 of 40 economists expect the ECB to cut its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent next week. Greg Woodard at Manning & Napier said the market is looking
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Calpers market value exceeds the high set before the global financial crisis wiped out more than a third of its wealth, but is is still short $87 billion, or 26 percent, of meeting its long-term commitments. Calpers has half of its money in equities, and returned 13 percent
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Soros Fund Management disclosed a 7.9 percent in JC Penney, its fourth-largest equity shareholder. Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-25/george-soros-reports-7-9-passive-stake-in-j-c-penney.html Click here to receive free and immediate email alerts of the latest forecasts.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Coin sales by the US Mint are the highest since 2009 and Russia and Kazakhstan expanded gold reserves for a sixth month in March. James Steel at HSBC Securities (USA) expects physical demand from emerging markets to remain strong near-term, while their central banks’ growing appetite for
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Tomomi Yamashita at Shinkin Asset Mgmt said earnings overall are not bad, but some share prices got way ahead of themselves triggering profit taking, while tech is a hard spot and needs to do more capital investment but are waiting for an improvement in the economy. The Topix
READ MORE... →