Salient to Investors: Fashion is the fastest-growing segment of online commerce. Men are flocking to websites, which are capturing a growing part of the $41 billion fashion e-commerce market. NPD Group says the women’s online clothing market is more than double men’s, but the men’s market is growing at a 13 percent annual
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The University of Texas system will quadruple the number of schools involved in EdX, which offers free online courses to anyone over the Internet. Texas joins the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard and MIT. A modest fee will be charged for those who want certificates for completing a
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio – CAPE – correctly signaled frothy markets in 1929, 1999 and 2008. CAPE looks at 10 years of averaged profits so is considered a more conservative gauge. S&P 500 has a trailing P/E of around 15, which makes the market attractive based on historical levels, and
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: FRB Governor Jeremy Stein said: Diminishing returns from Fed purchases of Treasurys indicate it should instead buy mortgage-backed debt – corporate borrowers can already secure inexpensive credit. A strategy of deliberately seeking higher inflation to spur economic growth would be a mistake and take the Fed away from one leg
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: David Brown at LSL said the lack of lending, especially to first-time buyers, is choking off first-time buyer sales outside of prime London. Acadametrics said house prices rose 2.2 percent from a year earlier in September due to a shortage of properties, but the rate of increase is slowing. London average prices
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Investors are shunning bonds from the neediest borrowers on a default rate at the highest level since 2009. S&P says the default rate of these borrowers reached 27.2 percent in August, up 10 percentage points from a year earlier. Dan Newhall at Vanguard said there’s not a
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: PricewaterhouseCoopers ranks London a close second behind New York as a financial center on its economic clout, ease of doing business, innovation and attraction as an international gateway. Toronto and Paris rank 3rd and 4th, Singapore 7th, Hong Kong 8th. Paris topped the livability category. Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-12/london-jumps-to-second-behind-nyc-in-pwc-rank-of-finance-cities.html
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Martin van Vliet at ING said a sharp reversal in September is possible, given the slowing global economy and the fiscal squeeze in the euro zone – any upturn in euro-zone industrial activity will be modest. IMF forecasts 3.3 percent global growth in 2012, the weakest pace since the 2009
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: China is the world’s largest buyer after India. Michael Smith at T&K Futures & Options aid worries over China’s growth has cast a gloom over gold. Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-12/gold-gains-as-investor-demand-increases-etp-holdings-to-record.html
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The ratio of companies saying profits will trail estimates versus those saying they will exceed them is at 4.3, levels of February 2009 and October 2001. William Frels at Mairs & Power says the economy is weaker than most people realized. The S&P 500 P/E is 14.6 versus an average of 16.4
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