Salient to Investors: Robert Shiller at Yale said stocks and bonds are highly priced and may be joined by real estate. Jeremy Siegel at Wharton expects the bull market to continue, possibly reaching Dow 18,000 or higher by the end of 2014. Siegel said bull markets climb the wall of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Barry Ritholtz writes: Rarely have conditions for market gains been so promising at a time when investor psychology has been so negative. Only 7% in a Gallup poll were aware of the S&P 500’s 30% increase in 2013, while more than 50% would put new cash into
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Yngve Slyngstad at Norges Bank Investment Management, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, said: They are gradually picking up some new markets but at a less rapid pace than at the beginning of 2014. At the end of June, 9.9% of the fund’s stocks and 13.4% of its bonds
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The majority of top-ranked women in S&P 500 companies are not in the operational jobs that lead to CEO – 55% are finance, legal or HR chiefs. 94% of S&P 500 CEOs held top operations positions immediately before appointment. Women lack role models and tend to start
READ MORE... →Martin van Vliet at ING said geopolitical tensions will become increasingly critical in the coming months, the big drop in China is consistent with a slowdown in growth, and the recovery in the euro area is too slow to turnaround the global market. Christian Schulz at Berenberg Bank said geopolitical uncertainties, especially Ukraine, threaten to undermine the export-led
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The OMX Copenhagen 20 Index: Returned 21% (18% in US dollars) in 2014 including dividends – the best benchmark gain in 24 developed markets – versus 9.6% for the S&P 500. Returned 280% (299% in US dollars) including dividends since its low in March 2009 versus 229% for
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Todd Salamone at Schaeffer’s Investment Research said the Fed raising rates sooner than expected is still a big ‘if.’ The S&P 500 has not had a decline of 10 percent in almost 3 years and trades at 17.8 times reported earnings, near the highest level since 2010.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: JD Power said the average term of a light-vehicle loan in Canada is 69 months versus the peak of 72 months in Q3 2013. Canadians continue to buy big-ticket items and ignore warnings about unsustainable debt growth. Regina Malina at Equifax Canada sees little evidence Canadians are struggling to
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia said: Euro-area austerity policies have been a dismal failure as growth grinds to a halt. Monetary policy cannot substitute for fiscal union – construction of a European banking union is too slow. Mutualization of euro-area debt – rejected by Germany and others – would
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Living costs in China are deterring couples from having more than one child as less than 3 percent of the 11 million couples applied for permission by the end of May. The UN said China’s fertility rate of 1.66 versus the 2.1 needed to sustain population levels
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