Salient to Investors: Matthew Benjamin at Medley Global Advisors said there is a perception that there is a difference between Yellen and Summers” in their approach to monetary stimulus. Leo Grohowski at BNY Mellon Wealth Mgmt said the market was comfortable with a Yellen appointment and is now needing to grow comfortable with
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Denmark’s Economy Minister Margrethe Vestager said world reaction to talk of Fed tapering clearly shows how addicted people have become to record-low rates and a reminder that low borrowing costs are still underpinning demand across much of the globe. The IMF said Denmark’s record debt levels make them more vulnerable
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Caroline Baum writes: Tapering seems fully priced into the market, and time is not on the Fed’s side. Vince Reinhart at Morgan Stanley said Fed officials have already paid a high price in terms of market volatility for showing their desire to end QE. Long-term interest
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Caroline Baum writes: The residential real-estate market has just got going and only in the last 2 years has residential investment contributed in any significant way to economic growth. July single-family housing starts of an annual rate of 591,000 is a long way from the peak of 1.8 million
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jim Rogers writes: Plato said that societies develop from dictatorship to oligarchy to democracy to chaos and then back to dictatorship. Chaos seems to be what is happening in some Asian countries. Japan, Korea, Singapore, China were all one-party states but as they became more prosperous, their
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jim Rogers writes: India should be on of the world’s greatest agriculture nations but is not because it is illegal for farmers to own more than five hectares of land, making it impossible to compete with someone in Australia or Canada. Every year, India comes up with more
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Brian Jones at Societe Generale said the rate of growth of home prices is certainly slowing, but is still posting respectable year-over-year increases and housing is in good shape. S&P/Case-Shiller say the year-over-year gauge provides better indications of trends in home prices. All 20 cities in the index
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: William Pesek writes: Another 1997-like Asian crisis is highly unlikely because exchange rates are now more flexible, foreign-currency debt is lower, banks are healthier, countries are sitting on trillions of dollars of reserves, and economies are far more transparent. The same can’t be said of 1994, when the
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jim Rogers writes: India goes from one mistake to another, despite its controls and rising debt. Indian politicians want to blame economic problems on someone else, and now it is gold. Exchange controls in India are absurd. Foreigners cannot invest in commodities in India. Read the full
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Caroline Baum writes: Arvind Krishnamurthy at Northwestern and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen at Berkeley found that Treasury purchases themselves have had limited beneficial spillovers to private borrowers, i.e. the Treasury was able to borrow at lower interest rates but not the rest of us. The researchers found that the
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