Salient to Investors: India may increase import taxes for a second time in 2013 to narrow a widening current-account deficit, 80 percent of which is due to gold imports, curbing demand for gold in jewelry and investment. Monal Thakkar at importer Amrapali said increasing the duty will encourage smuggling keeping India as the number
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Banks that agreed to help troubled borrowers as part of a settlement with regulators over foreclosure misdeeds are spending most of the promised aid on short sales and forgiveness of home-equity loans that allow them to take bad loans off their books. Arthur Wilmarth at George Washington University said banks
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Ira Jersey at Credit Suisse said a modest uptick in inflation, but not a crazy uptick, gives the Fed more leeway by showing it their policies seem to be working. Bill Gross at Pimco said the Fed may halt bond buying in January 2014, depending on the pace of the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Mark Andersen at UBS said the FOMC minutes may have started an adjustment process for the markets, with realism setting in with investors. Anderson said you can’t have both stronger growth and ever-expanding balance sheets at central banks, so their members are starting to consider the longer-term
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bloomberg and Pavilion Global Markets report 12 stock-sale announcements over the past 3 months for every purchase by insiders at S&P 500 companies, the highest ratio since January 2011. Pavilion said readings above 11 historically preceded average declines of 5.9 percent over the following 6 months. The ratio of sales
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Tim Hartzell at Sequent Asset Mgmt said the Fed’s comments took a little excess out of the stock market as equities had gotten ahead of themselves in the belief there’s always going to be $85 billion come into the market from the Fed. 72 percent of the 427
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Pew Research Center said: 24.7 million millennial households have reduced the debt they owe on homes, cars and credit cards some 4 times faster than their elders, but college loans are an exception. Student loans more than doubled in the last decade for households led by those under 35
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Freddie Mac said the 30-yr fixed mortgage rate averaged 3.56 percent in the past week, the highest level since August 30, 2012, while the average 15-year rate held at 2.77 percent. Celia Chen at Moody’s Analytics said mortgage rates are still very, very low and will stay low
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Joaquim Levy at Bradesco Asset Mgmt said the Bovespa index may rally 25 percent to 70,000 as the economic rebound offsets the raising of interest rates by July by the central bank to combat inflation. Levy said the government will have to stop making noises that could erode investors’ confidence
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Moshe Milevsky at York University says: People with stable careers and regular paychecks – tenured professors, accountants, nurses etc. – should invest in bonds. People with variable incomes tied to the market or economy – salesmen, brokers, home builders, entrepreneurs etc. – should buy stocks. The most
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