Salient to Investors: Investors and regulators say unscrupulous mortgage bond sales tactics are widespread in a market lacking transparency, where even Wall Street’s most sophisticated mortgage investors remain at risk. Marilyn Cohen at Envision Capital Mgmt said managers who depend on dealers to find securities and quote prices over the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Paul Zemsky at ING Investment Mgmt sees much momentum for stocks even after such a good start to the year: earnings are strong, world economies are bottoming and valuations are attractive. EPFR Global report $39 billion moved into equity mutual funds in 2013, more than double the comparable period in
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Commonfund and the NACUBO said US university endowments lost on average 0.3 percent in the year ended June 30 after gaining 19.2 percent a year earlier. Over a third of the schools reported receiving less in donations than a year earlier. Harvard’s endowment fell 4.1 percent, Yale’s less than 1
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Treasuries are trailing stocks by the most since October 2011. Hiromasa Nakamura at Mizuho Asset Mgmt said the current rise in yields is due to Fed easing, while investors expect money to go into riskier assets, and equity markets are rising. Bill Gross at Pimco said unprecedented central
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Timothy Drinkall at Morgan Stanley were overweight in Argentine stocks at the ed of 2012 after avoiding them earlier in the year. Drinkall said valuations are extremely low after government controls on imports and currency markets weakened Argentina’s economy and President Fernandez’s declining popularity has curtailed her ability to implement some of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Markus Rosgen and Yue Hin Pong at Citigroup said stock funds attracted $18.8 billion last week versus $3 billion for bonds, with 58 percent of equity inflows going to North American funds. Pong said the outperformance of equities over bonds was mainly driven by US ETFs, while earnings
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Nigel Gault at IHS Global Insight said the drop in GDP in Q4 2012 was driven by temporary corrections in defense spending and inventories and is not a harbinger of recession – expects 2 percent growth in Q1 2013. Mark Zandi at Moody’s Analytics said the expansion will remain on course thanks
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Eric DeMarco at Kratos Defense & Security Solutions said politicians on notice that if they don’t fix the drop in defense cuts, the country is going back into recession. Benjamin Mandel at the Bureau of Economic Analysis said on an annualized basis, defense spending for the year fell 3.1 percent from 2011. Kevin Brancato
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A. Gary Shilling at A. Gary Shilling & Co writes: Investor zeal for yield and disregard for risk favors the junkiest of the junk. When the grand disconnect between investor focus on the immense liquidity created by central banks and weak and weakening global economies becomes unsustainable, probably
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: James Hamilton at the University of California said interest rates are climbing as asset purchases help bolster confidence in economic growth. Hamilton said the economy picking up puts upward pressure on yields regardless of what the Fed is doing on the bond supply side, pleasing the Fed. Jonathan Wright at Johns Hopkins said
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