Salient to Investors: William D. Cohan writes: Mary Schapiro did a lousy job as head of the SEC, of protecting investors from the likes of Bernie Madoff, of holding Wall Street accountable for their extraordinarily bad and criminal behavior leading up to the 2007 and 2008 financial crisis. Obama has added insult to injury by
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jan Hatzius at Goldman Sachs said the private sector surpluses is the mirror image of public sector deficits. Hatzius says the economic crisis will end in 2013, followed by US growth over 3%. After 2013, the US economy will benefit significantly from a relevering private sector (lower savings) with the worst of the fiscal drag coming to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Nassim Taleb writes: (Excerpted from “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder”) Imagining future technologies is unpredictable and won’t be the ones that make it. The futuristic projections made throughout the past 150 years by Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, George Orwell and other scientists and futurists are not tools
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Markus Rosgen and Yue Hin Pong at Citigroup said EPFR Global reported stock funds this week had their second-largest weekly inflows in 2012 and more than the inflows into bond funds, while US funds reversed an outflow trend and Asia attracted the second-largest inflows this year. Pong said most economic data have positively
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Goldman Sachs said homebuilders have already priced in the housing recovery, so investors need to look beyond these stocks for the ripple effects of housing stabilization – like certain versions of the ABX and US domestic banks. Kyle Bass at Hayman Capital Mgmt said senior-ranked subprime debt offer
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Adding basements under luxury properties in Central London costs a $500 a square foot to dig, $600 a square foot to fit, and adds $4,000 a square foot to value. Watch the video at http://www.bloomberg.com/video/the-only-way-is-down-a-new-craze-for-luxury-homes-U_TQXO4DQ0CG_5yS5EABlg.html
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The flood of foreclosures predicted by experts two years ago has failed to materialize. Instead, the number of properties for sale shrank to the fewest in a decade, prices appreciated at the fastest pace since 2005, and the gradual healing of the housing market helped boost consumer confidence
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jeffrey Gundlach at DoubleLine Capital says: The first phase of the coming debacle was the 27-year buildup of corporate, personal and sovereign debt to 2008. The third phase will be deeply indebted countries and companies defaulting sometime after 2013. Buy gemstones, art and commercial real estate and other hard assets. Chinese
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Chris Rupkey at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ said the economy is growing moderately, and the disappointing pace of consumer spending is less worrisome as other sectors of the economy are doing better, like housing. The median economist expects consumer spending to be at a 1.9 percent pace in Q3, and GDP to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Andrea Guzzi at IST Investmentstiftung fuer Personalvorsorge said the global economy is recovering and healing, thanks to the US and the emerging markets – more people are becoming wealthy, less and less are poor. Guzzi said many countries have oversized banking sectors. Gala Prada at Fiatc Mutua de Seguros y Reaseguros expects
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