Salient to Investors: Stocks in developed countries are being favored over emerging markets in the belief they provide a cushion during a weakening recovery. Keith Wirtz of Fifth Third Asset Management sees a shift to countries less reliant on mining and energy production. Eric Teal of First Citizens Bancshares said definitions of buy, sell and
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The worst recession in six decades is hurting workers while leaving bosses almost unscathed. Between 2007 and 2010, people in nonprofessional occupations without college degrees saw median earnings fall 4.6 percent versus a 1.9 percent rise for college-educated professionals or managers. BLS reports 8.1 percent of workers with a high school degree
READ MORE... →Predictions: Asianomics Ltd. said China’s surprise first interest rate cut since 2008 and loosened financial controls are a sign of panic, will fail to boost the Chinese economy, which is close to recession, that the world is headed for recession. Chinese banks need to raise lending rates because their cost of funds is going up. Read the full article
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Martin Feldstein said Greece cannot be fixed. A Greek departure would be chaotic short-term, but longer-term would return Greece to growth and more robust employment. Italy is in good shape. Spanish regional budget deficits pose a bigger problem than the banking crisis. European leaders lack a longer-term strategy on how to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Global monetary-policy makers are trying to stem the steepest global slowdown since the recession ended in 2009. Predictions: David Hensley of JPMorgan Chase expects global growth of 1.7 percent this quarter and 2 percent next, as weak as anything in the past two decades outside the Great Recession. Expects the Fed to keep benchmark rate at
READ MORE... →Observations by Professor Robert Skidelsky and Lecturer Edward Skidelsky: Power relationships and the insatiability of human wants maintain our acquisitiveness. Economic growth has trumped all other objects of economic policy. Shift to a market-based philosophy of growth abandons any interest in the social outcome of growth. The Anglo-American system of the past 30
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: History may be repeating itself. Historians take a longer and bleaker view on a Euro Zone breakup than economists. In both cases, the founding generation was dying out as crisis hit and disintegration loomed. Ruble zone breakup was led to runaway deficits and hyperinflation and every Soviet state
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Obama cannot afford a European financial meltdown. In 2008, Merkel rejected Obama’s request to speak at Brandenburg Gate. Obama has courted Merkel since, but the European Centre for International Political Economy said Germany is tired sick of the complaining and lecturing from Obama and Geithner. American Academy said helping Obama is not a Merkel priority
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Article lists Bloomberg’s survey of economist estimates of the U.S. trade gap. Predictions: Credit Suisse said trade is not going to be a big swing factor for U.S. economic growth because the world is slowing down. Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-08/trade-gap-in-u-s-probably-shrank-on-cheaper-crude-oil-imports.html
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Offices are being converted into residences on surging foreign demand for luxury homes in central London, partly fueled by limited financing for new development and permit restrictions on high-rise projects. Luxury-home prices in London are estimated to be up 37 percent in the past 5 years Prime office vacancies in
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